Afghan nationals held With fake passports

The Senate Committee on Interior and Narcotics was informed on Thursday that Saudi authorities had identified 1296 individuals with fake Pakistani passports, who were later confirmed to be Afghan nationals.

During the meeting, Senator Irfan Siddiqui questioned how many Pakistani passports were issued to non-Pakistanis over the past five years. DG Passports Mustafa Jamal Qazi responded that 1296 fake passport holders were later identified as Afghan nationals. He added that 45 new such cases have also surfaced, and many of the individuals have been deported to Afghanistan.

DG Passports revealed that 35 assistant directors have been punished for their involvement in creating fake passports. Thousands of bogus Pakistani passports were reportedly issued, mostly from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gujranwala, and Gujarat.

The meeting was informed that 4500 passports were issued without proper data, 3,000 were made using photo-swapping techniques, and 6,000 were created by breaching Nadra’s system making a total of 12000 fake passports. These individuals are currently not in Pakistan. The committee also reviewed issues related to CNIC renewals.

Nadra’s COO explained that, as per policy, every CNIC must be renewed after ten years.The chairman highlighted concerns about unrelated individuals being added to the family trees of genuine CNIC holders. Nadra officials said new procedures have been introduced, including physical verification of blood relatives and biometric verification to prevent such fraud.

The committee is expected to revisit the issue with a detailed update from Nadra in the next meeting.