LARKANA: NADRA Chairman Muhammad Tariq Malik claimed on Wednesday that cards of Afghans were made before 2007 when there was no multi-biometric system and at that time, the cards were handwritten.

“The Afghans started arriving in 1980. It has become very difficult to make CNICs now,” he said while talking to media persons after inaugurating NADRA Registration Center near Luhar Colony in Larkana. Mr Malik claimed that proper verification of any Afghani or outsider visiting NADRA Center for obtaining CNIC was made and CNICs had been linked to biometric devices.

He said that the NADRA system had become so strong now that making a card had become very difficult. He said people of Pakistan are our eyes and ears. Mr Malik appealed to them to identify Afghanis or any outsider who has obtained CNIC wrongly.

He said 1427 Afghanis applied for CNIC but their cards were not prepared despite the fact that they came to their centers. Mr Malik said: “We do international projects and unnecessary propaganda against NADRA is uncalled for. “CNIC is very cheap for Pakistanis and very difficult for Afghans nationals and outsiders who are irrelevant.”

He was accompanied by Director General, Sukkur Region, Ihtesham Shahid, Capt (R) Raza Ali, Ghulam Mustafa Panhwar, Nabi Bux and Muhammad Sharif Soomro.