As many as 1,000 passports were stolen from the headquarters of two Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) agencies in 1994-95, an auditors general report revealed here on Tuesday.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) wherein the matter was disclosed suspected al Qaeda fugitives, drugs and human traffickers might have misused the missing passports.
The PAC, which met here with MNA Malik Allah Yar Khan in the chair, decided to form a sub-committee to hold parliamentary probe into what a member termed reprehensible crime.
The sub-committee will report in a month after summoning all concerned officials including the NWFP home secretary and both the political agents.
Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was quick to float the proposal of forming a sub-committee the moment the matter was brought to light.
"It is an issue of larger magnitude and may have serious repercussion," Nisar remarked.
"We (Pakistan) have no guarantee that Osama (bin Laden) and his men have not used these missing documents to bring bad name for the country," said Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians MNA Syed Qurban Ali Shah.
The revelation of passports' theft is likely to give the world, especially the United States, a new opportunity to grill Pakistan and force it to step up an ongoing offensive against al Qaeda fugitives in tribal areas.
An audit report of departments and offices in Fata under States and Frontier Regions (Safron) for 2000-01 unveiled missing of 500 passports each from offices of Mohmand and Bajaur agencies political agents during 1994-95 in a book keeping verification conducted in September 1999.
The national exchequer suffered a loss of Rs 1.50 million as a result of this theft and PAC members suspected it might have been occurred due to either trickery or laxity of the administration.
The PAC also took up several other audit paras of Safron disclosing millions of rupees losses and administrative negligence.