Pakistan

JUI-F’s Hafiz Hamdullah declared ‘alien’ by NADRA

PEMRA directs TV channels to refrain from inviting the religious party leader in their talk shows

Our Correspondent October 26, 2019

JUI-F leader Hafiz Hamdullah. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD: Former senator Hafiz Hamdullah, who belongs to the Maulana Fazlur Rehman-led faction of Jamiat Ulema-a-Islam (JUI-F), has been declared “confirmed alien” by the National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA).

In a letter, dated October 11, 2019, NADRA said Hamdullah “is not a citizen of Pakistan”. “Therefore, NADRA vide its orders U/S 18(1) & 17(2) has cancelled and digitally impounded the CNIC issued to Mr Hafiz Hamdullah Saboor,” the authority said.

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In pursuance to the NADRA’s decision, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) directed all television channels stop inviting him in their talk shows.

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“Since, it is established that the said person is an ‘alien’, therefore all the TV channels (News & Current Affairs) are directed to refrain from inviting and projecting Mr Hafiz Hamdullah Saboor in their programmes/talk shows, news, etc,” PEMRA said in a letter to TV channels.

Hamdullah has contested elections six times. He remained a member of the upper house of Pakistani parliament on a JUI-F ticket from March 2012 to March 2018. He had also been health minister in the Balochistan cabinet from 2002 to 2006.

The cancellation of his CNIC triggered a debate on social media and started trending on Twitter with users criticising the move.

Retired civil servant Orya Maqbool Jan said he knew the Chaman-based family of Hamdullah ‘very well’ and that the NADRA decision was ‘wrong’.

Jan, who had served as assistant commissioner in Chaman, Balochistan, towards the end of 1987 and beginning of 1988, said Hamdullah's father had a madrassa on the Mall Road in Chaman.

He belongs to the Noorzai tribe of the Pakhtuns, which has its origin in Afghanistan. “But that doesn’t make him an alien because a number of other Pashtoon tribes also have their origin in Afghanistan,” the political analyst said in a video message on Youtube.