A large number of citizens staged protest demonstration against 'rampant corruption' and 'irregularities' at Nadra facilitation centers, demanding immediate action against the concerned officials. Zafar Iqbal of Pasban while addressing the demonstration in front of Karachi Pres Club said that citizens were facing immense difficulties to get computerised national identity cards (CNICs).
He regretted that Nadra offices particularly in Orangi Town have adopted a humiliating attitude towards the citizens, so that these citizens pay extra money to the agents roaming outside the centres to get their CINCs issued after paying bribe. He said the Nadra Orangi Centre staff often discourages the citizens to get their CNICs issued through proper and legal channel.
Iqbal said the citizens of Orangi have to make a queue before the Nadra Centre at 2:00am in the night so as to get a token in morning. He said when citizens come along with their birth certificates, B-forms, identity cards of their parents and other documents, they are asked to provide the copies of their 'ration cards' issued in the decade of 1960. He said even a person whose other family members have already been issued CNICs is required to provide the ration cards of his parents and grandparents. He said if the same person pays the required bribe to an agent outside the centre he could get his CNIC easily.
He said that everyone who migrated to Pakistan after the creation of this country was a Pakistani. Demanding documentary proof about their deceased forefathers was a sheer disgrace to these Pakistanis and in fact a tool to extort bribes from them. Another protester, Ghulam Haider said all these documents of B-form, birth certificates and national identity cards of parents and grandparents were demanded to force a citizen to pay bribe.
They demanded of the Ministry of Interior to take notice of this state of affairs in Nadra office Orangi Town and make the process of issuance of CINC easy for the citizens of Orangi. They also demanded to sack the corrupt officials of this centre and replace them with honest ones.