Justice delayed: NADRA official threatens suicide, demands FIR

She has been accused by the authority of stealing a number of smart NICs

ISLAMABAD:

Worried by an unending departmental inquiry initiated against her around 15 months ago, a female National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) official has threatened to commit suicide for ‘not being heard properly at any forum’.

The officer says she has not only been denied justice within her department, but also by the police, accusing them of quashing her application for the registration of an FIR last week on the basis of a written request from senior NADRA officials.

The accused officer is a deputy assistant director in the corporate quality management directorate.



According to documents submitted to the police by NADRA, the authority has accused the official of allegedly stealing 28 smart identity cards from the organisation’s rejected cards stock.

The documents suggest the accused was suspended from service on August 12, 2014.

She sought an FIR against senior NADRA officers who are members of the inquiry board probing her case. In her application to the police, she accused the officials of mistreating her when she appeared before them to record her statement during the investigation.

Her application was lodged in the Secretariat Police Station, and was quashed after NADRA officially requested police, in writing, to reject it on account of the pending inquiry while also writing that the allegations she levelled against the probe officials were false.

“Reported complaint may kindly be expunged,” NADRA requested in its correspondence.

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Following her suspension, NADRA Operations Director-General Muzaffar Ali formed an inquiry board comprising three senior officers to probe her.

“Despite a lapse of 12 months, and repeated extensions, the inquiry did not conclude. It was decided to dissolve the said inquiry board,” the document reads.

A new inquiry board headed by NADRA Director-General Fizzah Shahid, with assistant director Capt Umar Qazi and director Reema Aftab, was formed on August 4 this year.

This new inquiry committee was supposed to investigate the matter and submit a report within 15 days of its formation.

On September 15, during proceedings into the case, the accused was called for her statement.

“During proceedings, the members suspected the accused officer of recording the proceedings…. Vigilance department was called, whose officer, Major (retd) Khurshid Ahmad Wazir, asked the accused to switch off her mobile and put it on the side-table,” the document further reads.



“The accused did so without any objection,” Wazir wrote in his statement, submitted with the police. “During my short stay [in the room where inquiry proceedings were in progress], I noticed everything was normal,” Wazir’s statement added.

The accused officer, however, claims otherwise.

According to her application, submitted with the police, she was maltreated and physically harassed, and inquiry members later snatched her mobile phone.

Insiders claim the accused officer also filed a workplace harassment application with the federal ombudsman.

During proceedings, NADRA produced the mobile phone records of the accused, claiming her cell phone was in her possession, contrary to her claims that it was snatched.

To this, the inquiry officer at the ombudsman’s office questioned the capacity under which NADRA was able to obtain her private cell phone records, and whether permission to do so was sought from the accused.



Sources say that after the quashing of her application by the police, the accused officer has faced an inquiry for the past 15 months. She has now threatened to commit suicide in front of NADRA headquarters to protest the treatment she allegedly faces.

On the other hand, a NADRA officer, said the accused was given chances to prove her innocence, but always tried to manipulate events.

“The previous inquiry board was devolved at her request. She was not appearing before it, accusing it of being biased,” the officer said, adding that NADRA management would not be blackmailed by such tactics.

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