I request the interior minister to help in my nationality verification immediately and issue instructions to NADRA
KARACHI: I am a Pakistani national born in Pune, India, and acquired Pakistani nationality in 1992 after marrying a Pakistani citizen. I visited the NADRA office on Shahra-e-Quaideen in Karachi on November 23 to apply for a smart card. I have had five Pakistani passports issued to me since 1992, after a lapse of every five years. I surrendered my previous card to NADRA officials in order to apply for my smart card. I was asked to contact the zonal administrator at the Awami Markaz, Karachi, for the verification of my nationality. The NADRA office at the Awami Markaz gave me a form to fill and instructed that I submit all relevant documents, including copies of my nationality certificate, and CNICs of my husband, mother-in-law, father-in-law and my two sons. All documents were submitted to the NADRA office on December 14 and I was asked to contact it after one month.
I have been visiting the NADRA office repeatedly since then only to face misbehaviour at the hands of the guard standing at the entrance of the office. He does not allow anyone to even enter the office premises to find out the status of their pending cases. I visited the NADRA head office in Karachi and was told that my case has been sent to the Ministry of Interior for verification of my Pakistani nationality certificate. I have sent an email to the Ministry of Interior and the NADRA office in Islamabad but have not received a response. It appears that my only crime is that I decided to apply for a smart card despite holding a computerised national identity card having an expiry date of 2022. I, therefore, request the interior minister to please help me get my nationality verification done immediately and tell the authorities at the NADRA office at the Awami Markaz, Karachi, to give clearance for the issuance of my smart card. NADRA has blocked my data and I cannot buy a mobile phone SIM or get my passport renewed.
Rizwana Rafique Suriya
Published in The Express Tribune, May 7th, 2016.
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