LAHORE – The Lahore High Court (LHC) has directed the interior ministry to clear the status of a Pushtoon family within one month by deciding its appeal against the cancellation of Computerized National Identity Cards (CNIC) for allegedly belonging to Afghanistan.
Daray Khan, resident of Daska, Sialkot, had moved the Lahore High Court through his counsel Ch Shoaib Saleem Advocate, alleging that the petitioner had filed an appeal under the NADRA Ordinance 2000 with the interior ministry against cancellation of CNICs of his family on the report of security agencies that he is not a Pakistani and belongs to Afghanistan.
He prayed that the appeal is pending with the interior ministry for the last more than six months, and there is every probability that the petitioner and his family may suffer dislocation at the hands of the law enforcement agencies for allegedly being Afghanis. The petitioner’s counsel argued that the forefathers of the petitioner had moved to Daska from Kurram Agency in 1962 and that they had also moved a civil case against the NADRA, which was decreed, and in execution of that case, the NADRA had issued them CNICs but these were cancelled again after some time.
Ch Shoaib argued that the petitioner is a registered taxpayer to the government and had also purchased his property in Pakistan. It is their third generation that is settled in Pakistan, he argued, adding that all their fundamental rights are suspended which are conditional to holding of a valid CNIC including their rights to travel, right to conduct business, right to movement and right to deal with any kind of transaction and which is against the Pakistani as well as international laws.
Justice Muzamal Akhtar Shabbir directed the Minister of Interior to decide the appeal filed by the petitioner within 30 days and meanwhile restrained the respondents from harassing the petitioner.
