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200 dubious passports yet to be verifiedundefined

From Our Correspondent
ISLAMABAD - Around 200 dubious passports are still to be verified due to constant delay in the inquiry ordered last year by the government to prove the authenticity of 266 suspect passports.

An inquiry committee was constituted at the end of last year to look into the grave matter of dubious fake passports after some officials of the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports brought this matter to the notice of higher authorities in the Interior Ministry, the sources said.

The committee had to take decision about 266 passports but after the passage of six months it cancelled only 69 of them while, 197 passports are still to be verified by the relevant authorities, the sources said.

According to sources in the Immigration department the most serious aspect of this issue was the issuance of number of passports to rented mothers who most probably used them for the trafficking of innocent children to other countries.

The officials who pinpointed the issuance of dozens of dubious passports with the names and passport numbers also expressed their concern that those involved in smuggling of children, still have valid travel documents while the relevant authorities have taken no notice of their complaints .

One of them while talking to The Nation on condition of anonymity, said, “A mafia, in an organized manner, is using these passports for the smuggling of children, the most atrocious aspect of human trafficking ,with the assistance of rented mothers . “These mothers are not in so big a number that they could not be recognized easily,” an official source said. Nonetheless, they have been issued more than one passport at different periods in the last few years, he added.

When contacted Khalid Saeed Haroon, who was Director General of Immigration and Passports Directorate at the time of inquiry of these passports said that earlier passports were not computerized due to which fake passports could be managed by nefarious elements.
“An Inquiry committee team, constituted to probe the matter, cancelled some of the passports,” he added.

‘’Due to heavy work load the pace of inquiry was a bit slow,” he said, adding that he has since been transferred to another department has no idea what happened after that. The sources said out of 69 cancelled passports, 63 were issued to same women with different pictures taken at different periods while six were issued to men.

Some of the passports declared fake by the Directorate of Passports include Mrs. Zenat Baloch (K-469954/08-08-2001), Mrs. Sabiha Begum (K-814040/4-12-2001), Miss Mehwish Khursheed (K-837784/23-01-2002), Muhammad Naveed (KB-182589/31-10-2002), Zahoor Hussain (KB-357077/23-12-2002) and others.

Nonetheless, 197 dubious passports were still to be cancelled said the sources adding that most of them were issued to same persons and all that they did was to provide the passport authorities with their pictures in different poses.

Sources in Passports Directorate also said that there are cases where passports on forged documents have been issued such as two passports have been issued to a single woman with different particulars.
“This issue was raised with the higher authorities in the Interior Ministry and Intelligence Bureau, especially as nefarious elements could use the forged passports for terrorism activities.

The Nation tried to contact Directorate General of Immigration and Passports for almost five days before filing this report but there was no response.
The PRO of DGIP refused to comment on this issue and advised to talk to Director Manzoor Akhtar who also referred this issue to Assistant Director Shakir , who he said is most relevant person to talk to on the matter.
However, Assistant Director Shakir said that 69 passports were cancelled and has no idea about the others without going into the details