ISLAMABAD - Some images of Pakistani national identity cards belonging to Afghan Taliban doing rounds on social media are either fake or the government had “digitally impounded” and blocked them, an official of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) said on Wednesday.
The official told The Nation that some of these national identity cards were issued between 2002 and 2007 when manually cards were issued and NADRA had no digital biometric machines for capturing finger prints.
A number of images of Pakistani national identity cards, allegedly issued by NADRA, belonging to Afghan Taliban have been circulating on the social media for the past few days. Secondly, news is doing rounds about recovery of Pakistani national identity cards by Taliban from Afghan nationals in Spin Boldak area of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province.
Earlier this week, NADRA through a Twitter statement had clarified that Pakistani national identity card of Taliban commander Sirtaif doing rounds on the social media was actually issued in 2002 through traditional finger-based paper capturing system but had been made dysfunctional in 2007 through authority’s own introduced digital biometric system.
Says some NICs issued in 2002 through traditional finger-based paper capturing system but made dysfunctional in 2007 through digital biometric system
Afghan General Muhammad Ayub from Spin Boldak had also obtained Pakistani identity card in 2002 which was later digitally impounded in 2007 due to multi-functions of biometric system, revealed background interviews with some NADRA officials. The current status of the card is permanently blocked since 2007, they said.
The officials say that some fake news reports were also circulating on social media. Referring to such reports, they said some Pakistani identity cards along with other recovered documents had been placed in Landi Kotal Police Station in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the same were posted on social media by a police official for identification and their onward collection. They said that some “anti-state elements” taking the opportunity spread the news on social media in context of Pakistani national identity cards imprudently obtained by Afghan nationals and linked it to the incident of Taliban’s recovery at Spin Boldak.
According to details, many non-nationals had been able to obtain Pakistan’s identity cards by deceiving the paper-based system in the beginning of registration process initiated by NADRA between 2001 and 2007. There was no easy way to distinguish these counterfeit cards from the real ones. Since 2007, the authority had obtained biometric machines for capturing fingers’ impressions.
But on reaching the expiry date, people reverted to NADRA for re-issuance of their cards but they failed to get the new ones and their older cards were digitally impounded and blocked. Through this way, the authority improved the system and corrected its database.
With continued use of advanced technology, such fake or dual identities are being identified and are rescinded continuously and permanently, the officials say.