The Federal Investigation Agency has detected 100 Pakistani passportsillegally issued to the Afghan nationals and arrested seven persons inthis regard.
Sources said on Friday that the FIA Peshawar launched a probe into 100illegally issued Pakistani passportslink to the Afghan nationalslink and arrested five localofficials of the passport office and one agent.
According to the sources, the anti-corruption cell of FIA initiated aninvestigation into the scam of illegal passports on a tip-off. The agencygathered proofs and evidence and also arrested an official who worked as a‘facilitator’ from the Islamabad passport office.
The FIA Peshawar detected the fraud when Pakistani citizens whosefingerprints and ID numbers were stolen and used in the issuance ofpassports, reached out to the authorities and made complaints.
Sources informed that at present the FIA was conducting five inquiries andit was expected that during the grilling of arrested persons, more detailswould emerge.
The Afghani nationals who have obtained illegal Pakistani passportslink are reported to havebeen travelling on these forged travel documents for years, the FIA sourcesconcluded.
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Last month the FIA has arrested an Afghan national, Gul Akhtar, who wasflying to Saudi Arabia on PIA flight on a fake Pakistani passport.
During the investigation, Gul Ahmed said he was an Afghani national and wasliving in a refugee camp in Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He told theinvestigating officers that he obtained the fake passport with the help ofan agent in Peshawar.
In January, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid told media that the governmenthad cancelled 200,000 computerized national identity cards (CNICs)fraudulently obtained by the Afghan nationalslink. He said that these cardswere issued on bogus documents. He also informed that 1.5 million Afghanrefugees had been registered here while 0.8 million Afghan refugees wereresiding illegally in Pakistan.
