ISLAMABAD: “I have been a tax payer since 1978-79; I also have the original domicile issued in 1965 from Jhang, where my family owns around 80 kanals of land. But now, at this age, I find myself running from pillar to post only to prove that I am a Pakistani,” said Jamil Khan, a resident of Chakwal, whose ID card has been blocked by the authorities for four years now.

After failing to convince the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), he filed a case in the Choa Saidan Shah civil court in 2012, where he presented all the original documents about his citizenship.

Eventually, the court ruled that Jamil Khan was a Pakistani, but Nadra remained unmoved.

“They cannot understand how I have roots in two districts – Jhang and Chakwal,” Jamil Khan told Dawn.

He explained that his father came to Jhang in 1918 from Kurram Agency as the British were developing the area. The family established a successful vegetable wholesale trade in Jhang and later, Jamil Khan moved to Chakwal where he became involved with the coal business, buying directly from the mines in Chakwal.

A large number of Pakhtuns living in areas around Islamabad have similar stories to tell and believe that the authorities treat them like Afghans because of their mother tongue.

As the state purges the land and society of militants, the strategy has targeted Afghans by design and Pakistani Pakhtuns by accident.

Many Pakhtuns have been thrown out of their homes and their lives disrupted as the authorities took them to be Afghan.

Those who say they are Pakistani citizens and have been mistaken for Afghans point out that in their families, only the CNICs of some family members had been blocked and others’ were not.

As Jamil Khan pointed out, “If we were Afghans, then the government should have targeted us all. But only the CNICs of two out of my three sons have been cancelled.”

Political outcry

Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party’s Mehmood Khan Achakzai, who is a member of the National Assembly, warned that Pakhtuns should not be treated as Afghans while addressing a protest rally on October 4, 2015, outside the National Press Club, Islamabad.

In the same month, Senator Mushahid Hussain criticised the ethnic profiling of Pakhtuns as he displayed a Punjab police survey form during a speech on the Senate floor.

The survey form asked a question about the ‘number of Pathans in the household’.

Senator Hussain had presented the form in the upper house after State Minister for Interior Balighur Rehman denied the existence of any such document.

l Pashtuns claim their identity cards are being blocked ‘arbitrarily’ l Lawmakers’ efforts to call attention to ethnic profiling fall on deaf ears l Islamabad IGP claims profiling helps maintain law & order

“We have data of around 6,000 cases – mostly in Punjab and Islamabad – where one family member’s CNIC has been cancelled while another still has his or hers,” PkMAP Senator Usman Kakar told Dawn.

“Pakistan does not have any laws that prevent those born in KP or Balochistan from settling in Punjab,” he said, adding that, “The IGP of Quetta is from Punjab – did we ever protest that?”

Israr Khan, a shopkeeper from Taxila, told Dawn that some people came to his residence in August or September of 2014 and inquired about the inhabitants of the household, including the women.

“They examined the photocopies of ID cards we provided and left,” he said, adding “A few months ago, when my elder brother went to get his CNIC renewed, we find out that his and his wife’s cards had been blocked.”

The issue was first raised by PTI MNA Asad Umar. Elected from Islamabad, Umer had submitted a resolution on the issue in the National Assembly just prior to his party’s dharna outside parliament last year.

“My resolution was against ‘racial profiling’ by the authorities because it is unlawful as well as unethical,” he said, adding that “The National Assembly speaker did not admit the resolution and therefore it was not fixed for discussion.”

Ethnic profiling?

The resolution denounced all such surveys conducted by the Punjab or Islamabad police that asked for the ‘quamiyat’ or ethnicity of residents.

However, their arguments have fallen on deaf ears. The Islamabad Inspector General of Police (IGP) Tahir Alam Khan, defends the surveys as a means to monitor the growing population of the federal capital.

He said that the survey, which was launched in mid-2014, was necessary for maintaining security in the city and ward off threats from “hardened terrorists”.

Afghan refugees in Pakistan have never had it easy, but according to a new report by Human Rights Watch, it appears that the state has targeted them with a vengeance in the wake of the Army Public School attack. Pakistani Pakhtuns have also been caught up in this melee, which has made it very difficult for Afghans to continue living in Pakistan. In this special report, Dawn examines the issue of ethnic profiling of Afghans and Pakhtuns and asks whether this treatment is a recent trend or is reflective of years of racial stereotyping.

“We are conducting surveys in Bhara Kahu, Meharabadi and Tarnol,” the IGP said. “But the majority of newcomers in Meharabadi are from Punjab, whereas those arriving from the KP are in Tarnol and Bhara Kahu. So it is not correct to say that we are targeting only Pakhtuns.”

He argued that once his department began conducting the survey, suspected criminals and terrorists left the area and these forced departures prevented the establishment of entrenched hideouts in the federal capital.

“We have no other option if we are to address the threat – we have evidence that hardened terrorists and handlers of suicide bombers have settled in these areas because of the military operations in several areas of KP and Fata,” he said.

According to him, surveys of religious seminaries were also being carried out. “It seems as if the majority of students in the large madressahs of Islamabad belong to KP and Southern Punjab,” he said.

“Whenever we find any suspicious person, his details are forwarded to the concerned district police officer – which is determined by the permanent address mentioned on the CNIC – who then contacts the local police stations.”

However, he had no answer for why CNICs of Pakistanis were being blocked.

Pakistani aliens?

This is also what the PkMAP is agitating against.

A party member provided the contact information of Naweed Khan from Fatehjang, who said that even his grandfather was a trader in the city.

“But the Nadra people ask only thing – why my accent is not as clear as that of the locals,” he said. “For almost two years now, my bank account has been blocked and I have no ID card. But my wife still has one.”

When asked about the government’s policy on Afghan nationals and how Nadra dealt with them, a source in the authority said there were three categories of ‘aliens’: confirmed nationals, confirmed aliens and suspect or suspicious cases. The first two categories, he said, were quite straightforward, but there were a large number of cases in the grey area. “These are individuals who do not possess complete documentation or there is something suspicious about their paperwork,” he said.

A Nadra spokesperson told Dawn that since the authority was merely an implementing body and that the interior ministry and the federal government were the relevant policy-making authorities in this regard, he could not comment on policy matters. An interior ministry spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

But Senator Usman Kakar has all Pakistani citizens in mind when he says that, “The ID card is the basic right of all citizens; even if a person is a criminal or a terrorist, how can his or her Pakistani citizenship be revoked.”

The party is in the process of collecting data from all over the country and it is expected that Mehmood Khan Achakzai will file an appeal in Supreme Court.

But in the meantime, Jamil Khan continues to live like an alien, unsure of where to go.

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2015