Daily Times

Dozens of Afghan families, residing in various villages of Landi Kotal received domiciles unlawfully with the support of administration officials.

Scores of Afghan citizens living in Mukhtar Khel, Khuga Khel, Bacha Mena, Piro Khel and others areas of Landi Kotal have been issued domiciles, whose photo copies have been mixed up with other domiciles, which have made their stay in Pakistan legal.

It is to be mentioned here that the head of one of the fake domicile holder family is presently serving in the Afghan forces, which exhibits a threat to the country’s security.

Some of the officials were involved in this heinous crime and they received Rs.0.1 million to Rs.0.3 million per domicile bribes, said an official of the administration office on condition of anonymity.

In the previous government, when a large number of Identity Cards (ID) had been blocked by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), the then interior minister Chaudhry Nisar directed the NADRA to unblock ID card of those Pakistani citizens who could produce a manual ID card issued in 1978 or an older one, he said.

The Landi Kotal Tehsil administrative officials had considered the minister’s statement a legal base and issued domiciles to the Afghan nationals, who produced fake manual ID cards dated as old as 1978, prepared from a press shop somewhere in the province.

The official added that keeping in view the miseries of the people, the minister provided relaxation to the original citizens of the country and secondly, the Afghani national producing the manual ID card of the year 1978 or with older dated manual ID cards could not be confirmed as the manual ID card lacked office record.

It has been also revealed that elders of the areas were also engaged in the illegal practice and they got a huge income for doing fake verification.

According to local sources dozens of Afghan families, hailing from various districts of Afghanistan after leaving their natives towns, had taken refuge in Landi Kotal, established their businesses and had bought properties illegally.

These Afghanis were unwilling to repatriate to their country therefore they utilised every unfair means to be declared citizens of Pakistan or at least to prolong their stay in Pakistan, locals said.

Residents of Landi Kotal disapproved the unlawful act of the responsible officials and said it would not only cause a security threat but would be equivalent to usurp sources of the locals.

On one hand thousands of identity cards of original Pakistani citizens of the area had been blocked in suspicion but on the other hand the administrative officials engaged in schemes, which made Afghan nationals real Pakistani’s by illegally issuing them domiciles, A local political worker, Yad Wazir Shinwari said while commenting on the matter.

He demanded the authorities concerned to cancel the domiciles, issued to the Afghanis and to take forthwith action against those who were involved in heinous crime.

The residents of Pased Khel, the bordering village of Landi Kotal complained that more than one thousand domiciles and ID cards had been issued to Afghan citizens citing residents of their locality.

Registration was the basic purpose of NADRA, while the administration was responsible for verification, a NADRA Landi Kotal official said.

As per NADRA Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) the applicant had to produce an ID card of one immediate relative including a father, mother, sister or brother beside bio-metric of any one of them, he added.

The official maintained that if a NADRA official suspected any applicant, then he could ask him or her to produce a domicile in addition with the routine NADRA SOP.

When the matter was brought in the notice of Landi Kotal Assistant Commissioner Muhammad Imran Yousafzai, he said they had a proper SOP for issuing domicile to the deserving residents of Landi Kotal and it passed through a long process of verification before it was issued to the applicant.

However, if a violation had been made and it was unearthed in inquiry that it had been issued to any undeserving person, he would cancel it forthwith and those officials found involved in would be dealt as per law, he added.