Green-eyed ‘Afghan girl’ arrested from Peshawar for possessing fake nationality
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Wednesday arrested the famed green eyed ‘Afghan girl’ from her house in Peshawar for owning a fake Pakistani Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC).
The haunting image of the then 12-year-old Sharbat Gula, taken in a refugee camp by photographer Steve McCurry in 1985, became the cover picture that was most renowned in the National Geographic magazine’s history.
She now faces seven to 14 years prison time and fine between $3,000 to $5,000 if convicted by court over fraud, Shahid Ilyas, an official of the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA), told AFP.
FIA is also seeking three NADRA officials who were found responsible for issuing CNIC to Gula.
She was one of thousands of Afghan refugees who managed to dodge Pakistan‘s computerised system and to get an identity card.
The authorities have launched a crackdown against those who launched a reverification effort across Pakistan and have got bogus ID cards fraudulently.
Officials say NADRA has so far check 91 million ID cards and detected 60,675 cards by non nationals fraudulently .
A NADRA official told AFP that , mostly foreigners 2,473 Afghans, had voluntarily surrendered their ID cards which they obtained fraudulently .
Eight were detained and some 18 officials of the authority were for issuing ID cards to foreigners, the official said.
Refugees have returned to their war torn homeland from Pakistan this year, UN data shows, with the torrent of people crossing the border expected to continue.
Pakistan has provided safe haven for numerous Afghans who fled their country.
Pakistan hosts 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees, according to UNHCR figures from before this year, making it the third-biggest refugee hosting country in the world. A further one million unregistered refugees are estimated to take the nation.
Fears are growing that the latest cutoff date in March 2017 will be closing, although since 2009, Islamabad has repeatedly pushed back a deadline about them to return.
