The government announced biometric verification for those wishing to make pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia for Umrah
KARACHI: The government recently announced biometric verification for those wishing to make pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia for Umrah. As of now the verification facility is only being provided in the provincial capitals, however, a significant majority of Umrah applicants is from interior regions of the provinces. This is one part of the problem for the applicants hailing from the interiors as they have to make one pilgrimage before the actual one to the cities and get their biometric verification done. Moreover, no rational reason has been given by the relevant ministry and the federal authorities for the said move besides that a Dubai-based company has been given the contract for collection of the biometric data of the applicants. While Iran, Egypt and Bangladesh have refused to apply biometric verification for Umrah applicants, the Government of Pakistan must give a sound reason for accepting and approving the verification method, and adding another hurdle to the already exhausting and tiring application procedure. Ideally, the thumbprint used in the registration process for a CNIC which is already available in the NADRA database should be sufficient to serve the purpose.
Fatima Shabbir
Published in The Express Tribune, November 6th, 2017.
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