ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has called for “given space” to the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), saying that it was a defining moment for the party. “The way MQM Pakistan stood up against its leader, it should be given space, and we should not doubt it,” he said while speaking at a press conference on Friday. Nobody could think that the MQM leadership could take such a big step against Altaf Hussain, he said, adding everybody who stood up should be supported. The minister said that Urdu-speaking people were very patriotic and they should not feel that they were being targeted. To a question about attack on an Indian military base in Uri, in Held Kashmir, Chaudhry Nisar said that India blamed Pakistan for the incident without any evidence. India had been making contradictory statements to malign Pakistan, he said, adding that the director general of military operations of India had also denied the statement attributed to him, while censorship was imposed on the media in India. Talking about the verification of Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs), the minister said that 82.5 million of 105 million cards had been re-verified during the three-month campaign, while the remaining would be verified in another month. He said a permanent mechanism would be put in place for re-verification of the CNICs to wipe out fake cards from the NADRA system. He said that the NADRA had identified 200,000 fake identity card holders. The minister said that during the campaign, 50,000 cards were blocked and 10,000 cases were sent to intelligence agencies for further probe. He remarked that the previous governments did not pay any heed to the issue of fake identity cards, “compromising national interest”. During the campaign against fake documents, 2,000 persons voluntarily disowned Pakistani nationality to avoid arrest and legal action, he said. He said that tens of thousands of CNICs had been blocked, adding it was his desire that cards of genuine citizens should be unblocked and in that regard a policy would be announced next week. The minister hinted at fixing a time limit in which a person would be cleared for the issuance of his identity card if nothing was found against him. He said the government had previously launched a crackdown on fake passport holders and cancelled 2,000 diplomatic and official passports given to unauthorised persons.