ISLAMABAD: The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has launched a new system of online verification and renewal of identity cards in a bid to control illegal issuance of computerised national identity cards (CNICs).
Under the system, Pakistani citizens will be able to receive and verify the details of their family members via SMS on their mobile phones by sending an SMS mentioning their CNIC number and its issuance date to 8009. In response, the sender will receive details of his/her family members.
“If any information is incorrect or the name of a stranger or unrelated person is included in the family, write 1 and send the SMS to inform Nadra, or go to any Nadra Registration Centre to unregister that name,” the authority’s chairman Tariq Malik said in a statement.
If the information is correct, write 2 and send the SMS to confirm the information. To avail the verification and renewal service, it is necessary to register the SMS with Nadra from the same mobile number which was provided at the Nadra Registration Centre while seeking the ID card or “B” form.
“If your mobile number is not registered with Nadra, you can visit any Nadra centre for registration or change of mobile number, and this facility is provided free of cost at all Nadra Registration Centres,” the statement said.
Nadra has introduced the IT-based solution for online renewal of CNICs to prevent human interaction during the social distancing era as part of COIVD-19 precautionary measures.
Under the system, “a Pakistani can verify that no stranger or unrelated person is registered in their family, if there is any improper entry, they should report it to Nadra at the earliest,” said the authority’s statement.
Nadra has launched an awareness campaign titled “Your family is safe, Pakistan is safe”. The system would also help the authority check foreigners illegally living in Pakistan, the statement added.
The development comes weeks after the issue of roughly four million ‘fake CNICs’ echoed across the country including in Senate and the National Assembly.
FIA Sindh Director Amir Farooqi, while speaking at a press conference at his office in Karachi last month, had revealed that some employees of Nadra helped militants linked with the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and proscribed outfits of Baloch sub-nationalist groups to get CNICs in return for monetary and other gains.
Farooqi named several foreigners, including an Indian citizen Imran Ali, who was involved in the Safoora carnage; and terrorists involved in the attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi, who got CNICs from Nadra. He also revealed that foreign agencies breached and damaged Nadra’s system.
