Daily Times

As part of an investigation into claims that identity cards and passports were issued to illegal immigrants, The News reported that Saudi Arabia has given the embassy 12,000 Pakistani passports that Afghan nationals were using.

There is now a committee looking into the 12,000 Afghans in Saudi Arabia who had fake Pakistani passports recovered from them.

Sources claim that Mustafa Jamal Kazi, director general of the Passport and Immigration Directorate, has been appointed to lead a five-person committee that was formed by the Interior Ministry.

Senior ministry officials, representatives from Nadra and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and other organizations are on the panel. The secretary for the committee will be an officer of the directorate.

The investigation body has been given 15 days to offer recommendations for how to avoid this issue in the future. Additionally, Nadra, the FIA, and the passport officers involved in the scam will be held accountable.

12,000 Pakistani passports were retrieved by Saudi Arabian authorities from Afghan nationals last week.

The development happened as law enforcement agencies began a crackdown on fraudulent people who were issuing phoney citizenship documents to illegal immigrants in the country, particularly Afghans.

The Saudi authorities informed the Pakistani embassy that they had found a large number of Afghan citizens’ Pakistani passports.

The main suspect, Umar Javed, was reportedly detained in Lahore for creating phoney passports at the time, as a result of the investigations.

Following the detention and investigation of a current grade-15 officer and a former officer of the Passport Directorate, Javed was also detained. According to the sources, fake identity cards were used to issue Pakistani passports to citizens of Afghanistan.