Pakistani passport scandal by Taliban interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani exposed. Here’s what happened

Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who held a key role in the Doha Agreement negotiations with the United States before the takeover of Kabul and the ouster of US troops, had been issued a five-year Pakistani passport, enabling his travels abroad. Interior ministry officials told The News International that these passports were distributed from various cities in Pakistani provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Balochistan, and Sindh.

Notably, around 30,000 to 40,000 passports allocated to Afghan nationals were subsequently blocked, as officials intensified efforts to tackle the Pakistani passport scandal situation. Passport offices in cities such as Thatta and Karachi in Sindh, as well as undisclosed locations in Balochistan and KP, facilitated this irregular issuance of Pakistani passports. 

The discovery of Haqqani’s Pakistani passport came to light when a Peshawar-based journalist, coincidentally on the same flight to Doha as Haqqani, observed him presenting the said passport at the immigration counter.

However, reports said that the mentioned journalist only brought the matter to the attention of passport authorities in August this year. Subsequent inquiries confirmed that the passport was issued in Peshawar during the tenure of the Imran-Khan-led PTI government.

The issuing officer, under the influence of an individual claiming to be a top intelligence officer, produced the travel documents for Haqqani. Both the issuing officer and the person involved in printing the passport have been held by the police.

Saudi authorities shared samples of Pakistani passports acquired by Afghan nationals seeking employment in Saudi Arabia, which the Pakistani government learned from Saudi authorities are over 12,000 in number. These passports were annulled and individuals using fraudulent documents were repatriated to Afghanistan.

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Prompted by these developments, the Pakistani government launched an investigation, exposing the extensive issuance of passports to Afghan nationals. Pakistan’s FIA (Federal Investigation Agency) initiated proceedings against officials involved in the issuance and production of these passports. 

This comes as nearly 450,000 Afghan nationals returned to their homeland in the two months following the Pakistani government’s announcement to deport all undocumented foreigners. “Those who have been asked to leave are the illegal immigrants here. They don’t enjoy the refugee status,” Durrani Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s special envoy to Afghanistan said Wednesday (Dec 7). 

(With inputs from agencies)