Court suspends move to cancel citizenship of JUI-F leader

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday suspended the decision of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) to cancel the citizenship of Jamiat Ulema-i-islam-fazl (JUI-F) leader Hafiz Hamdullah.

Hearing a petition filed by the former senator and ex-minister, IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah sought a reply from Nadra within two weeks and directed it as well as the interior ministry not to take any sort of action against Hamdullah.

Hamdullah told the IHC that Nadra cancelled his CNIC and he has submited a petition against the decision; however, no action has been taken on the application for a week. He said Nadra’s decision should be declared void and the interior ministry should be stopped from taking any action.

Officials representing Nadra told the court that in December 2018, a leter was writen to the JUI-F leader regarding his citizenship and a district-level commitee was formed. Following this, Hamdullah appeared before the commitee, which asked him for his documentation.

According to Nadra, the documents presented by the JUI-F leader turned out to be “bogus”.

Justice Minallah asked if Hamdullah had any children and whether they had national identity cards, to which his lawyer responded in the affirmative. The counsel added that one of Hamdullah’s sons was even in the Pakistan army.

“Can you doubt the citizenship of the husband of a mother who sends her son to sacrifice himself for the country?” the IHC chief justice remarked.

The IHC also suspended a notification of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) that bars TV channels from inviting Hamdullah as a guest.

Hamdullah had been elected a member of the Balochistan assembly in the 2002 general elections on Mutahida Majlis-e-amal ticket and served as provisional Health Minister from 2002 till 2005. In March 2012 he was elected to the Senate on a general seat as a JUI-F candidate. His tenure ended in March of last year. On Sunday, the Nadra declared Hamdullah an ‘alien’ ater finding that he ‘fraudulently obtained’ his computerised national identity card (CNIC), which was subsequently cancelled.