Pakistan told to cut blue passports to 25,000 for visa-free deals

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will have to bring the number of blue official passports down to about 25,000 before a group of countries will sign visa-exemption agreements, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told a parliamentary committee on Thursday, saying arrangements with 25 countries should be settled within six months.

Briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Interior, chaired by MNA Raja Khurram Shahzad Nawaz, Naqvi said the green passport's standing was improving and its international rating would rise further over the coming six months. Visa-free entry had already been agreed with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, he said, and a similar arrangement with Qatar was expected soon.

Naqvi put the total number of blue passports at 70,000 and said some countries had signalled they could end visa-exemption agreements unless that number was cut to 25,000. Business Recorder reported that he told the committee 22,000 blue passports had been cancelled and that issuance was currently banned. Blue passports are now issued to members of parliament for three years, he said, dismissing the impression that legislators hold most of them.

The figures given to the committee were not identical. According to Minute Mirror, the Director General of Passports told the meeting the number had been reduced from 75,000 to 49,000, and members asked how many of those are held by parliamentarians and how many by bureaucrats. Business Recorder reported that the committee sought a detailed breakdown of the 30,000 passports by which the total had been reduced.

State Minister for Interior Talal Chaudhry said excessive issuance of blue passports was also hurting Pakistan's push for visa-free travel and weakening its case for concessions. He assured the committee that details would be supplied on passports held by the Foreign Ministry, by officials on deputation and by former government officers. A senior Interior Ministry official said the rules governing official passports were being reviewed to improve the green passport's international standing, while members questioned proposed restrictions on validity and renewal and asked for a uniform policy.

Lawmaker Agha Rafiullah rejected the government's reasoning, saying he was willing to surrender his own passport, and demanded that the government identify the legal provisions under which blue passports are issued. He said members were representatives of the people and described the explanation offered as illogical.

The discussion follows the Senate's unanimous passage of a bill moved by Senator Abdul Qadir to amend the Passport Act, allowing former members of the National Assembly and Senate to keep blue passports for life and extending the privilege to their children, Minute Mirror reported. Senator Nasir Butt used the debate to call for cancelling the blue passports of retired officials including secretaries and judges, while Qadir asked why the children of Grade-22 civil servants should qualify if those of parliamentarians did not.

The same meeting was briefed on the investigation into the murder of Hina Javed. AIG Sohail Zafar Chattha of the Punjab Crime Control Department, who heads a committee formed by the Punjab chief minister, said the panel had met the victim's family, recorded their concerns and visited the crime scene, including the room of her father-in-law. He said suspects Zeeshan and Faisal Asghar were questioned at Adiala Jail in the superintendent's office, and that a bedsheet, rope and drawstring believed to have been used in the crime were recovered. DNA from the victim matched evidence linked to domestic employee Zeeshan Arshad, he said, and marks found on Arshad's neck were documented.