Fraudulent CNIC: FIA probing NatGeo’s Afghan girl

PESHAWAR:

Pakistani officials are investigating after the famous green-eyed Afghan girl immortalised in a 1985 National Geographic magazine cover was found living in the country on fraudulent identity papers.

The haunting image of the then 12-year-old Sharbat Gula, taken in a refugee camp by photographer Steve McCurry, became the most famous cover image in the magazine’s history.

After a 17-year search, McCurry tracked Gula down to a remote Afghan village in 2002 where she was living married to a baker and the mother of three daughters.

Now Pakistani officials say that Gula applied for a Pakistani identity card in Peshawar in April 2014, using the name Sharbat Bibi. She was one of thousands of Afghan refugees who managed to dodge Pakistan’s computerised system and to get an identity card last year. Faik Ali Chachar, a spokesman for the NADRA, told AFP the FIA was probing Gula’s case. We are waiting for the findings of the inquiry,” Chachar said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2015.