The Peshawar arm of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Thursday announced it had arrested six Afghan nationals in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa over their alleged involvement in forging Pakistani identity cards.
“Six Afghan nationals involved in forging Pakistani identity cards have been arrested,” read the statement, adding one of the arrests occurred at the Torkham border crossing, while the remainder took place at a hostel in the provincial capital.
It said that initially Afghan citizen Najibullah was arrested at the Torkham border after he was found to have both a Pakistani Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) and an Afghan Tazkira, or identity card. During preliminary investigations, it said, the suspect claimed he had entered Pakistan via the Pak-Afghan border at Chaman and then acquired a Pakistani CNIC and passport through a cleric in Quetta.
Utilizing the information provided by Najibullah, the statement continued, five other Afghan nationals with forged Pakistani documents were arrested from Peshawar’s Usmania Hostel. “Various Pakistani CNICs and passports, as well as Afghan Tazkiras, were recovered from the suspects,” it said, adding raids were ongoing to apprehend the agent facilitating the forgeries.
According to the FIA, the suspects had planned to travel to Saudi Arabia via Kabul using their forged Pakistani documents. It vowed that any employees of NADRA and passport offices involved in the offense would be identified during the investigation and prosecuted.
In November 2023, Pakistan launched a repatriation drive targeting “undocumented” migrants, most of whom are Afghans. After the successful completion of the first phase, which authorities claim saw nearly 700,000 Afghans return to their homeland, the government has planned to expand the drive to include individuals with Afghan Citizenship Cards (ACC).