Ordinary persons issued official Pak passports: court told

A top official informed a court today that even cycle mechanics were issued official passports on the instructions of the Interior Ministry during the term of the previous Pakistan Peoples Party-led government.
Zulfiqar Cheema, Director General of Immigration and Passports, told a single-judge bench of the Islamabad High Court that Passports Office across the country had issued a "huge number" of blue-coloured official passports to "non-entitled government officials and ordinary persons".
Cheema alleged that "even cycle mechanics had been issued blue passports on the orders of the Interior Ministry".
He added, "However, I have now written to the ministry for cancellation of all such passports".

The court should direct the Interior Ministry to cancel all such passports which were issued in violation of criteria, he said.
Due to this act, a number of countries had refused to grant visas to many Pakistani officers, he added.

Cheema further alleged that former Interior Minister Rehman Malik had asked a Deputy Project Director to award a contract for lamination sheets used in passports to Hologram Company, and a resultant delay provided an opportunity to "mafia elements" to take bribes ranging from Rs 20,000 to Rs 25000 to get passports issued.
The court should order an inquiry against persons responsible for causing crises in the issue of passports, he said.

"I have suspended many officials who were busy in taking bribes for issuing passports to people and ordered an inquiry against them," he said.
Rehman Malik, who is currently in London, denied the allegations levelled against him in messages posted on Twitter.
Referring to the current tender for lamination sheet awarded to a private company, Cheema said formal approval was granted on the recommendation of officials and a high-power committee headed by the Interior Secretary.
On the other hand, Reliance Company counsel Salman Akram Raja argued that authorities did not evaluate security features of samples of lamination sheets provided by US-based Security Laminates Opsec.

He argued that the Rs 1-billion contract was awarded in violation of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority rules.
After hearing arguments, the court asked the contractor's counsel to appear at the next hearing on May 28.