Remember the green eyed girl who took internet by storm? Well, she has been arrested and charged with making fake CNICs.
Sharbat Gula became the iconic “Afghan Girl” after her portrait was captured by Steve McCurry at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp situated on the edge of Peshawar in 1984, which appeared on the National Geographic’s cover page in the mid-1980s.
Sharbat Bibi’s portait displayed in a New York fine art’s gallery.
It was reported that NADRA officials helped Sharbat Bibi in acquiring the Pakistani CNIC. Investigation was conducted and in 2015, FIA also arrested Arbab Rizwan, who was Assistant Director of NADRA at that time. He was accused of helping Sharbat in attaining fake CNIC along with two of her brothers.
FIA have been investigating Sharbat and raided her residence in Peshawar, July this year, but ended up empty handed. After the failed raid, FIA agent said,
““We do not think she has moved to Afghanistan, it is possible she may have moved to another address in order to avoid the ongoing investigation.”
According to Faik Ali Chachar, the fake usage of identity cards is on the rise. Talking in regards to Sharbat Bibi’s case,
“This is one of the thousands of cases which was detected last year and sent to the FIA. We are waiting for the findings of the inquiry,” Faik Ali Chachar, spokesman for the National Database and Registration Authority.
“Our vigilance department detected (the) Sharbat Bibi case in August 2014 and sent it to FIA for further investigation the same month.”
It was reported that up to 22,000 refugees may have illegal identification. It is estimated that as many as 2.5 million Afghan refugees remain in Pakistan, although many returned to their home after the Taliban regime was overturned in 2001.
Over the course of the years, each little step has moved the Pakistani officials closer to the arrest of Sharbat Bibi. The raiding of her house in Peshawar proved crucial, which was with the NADRA’s help who had been helping FIA after the Arbab Rizwan arrest. Sharbat Bibi was arrested from Peshawar, it was revealed.
An auto and football enthusiast, you can contact Syed Zarar at syed.zarar@propakistani.pk. For more discussions, contact him on Facebook (fb.com/TacticallyInept). He tweets at: @TacticallyInept.
