Friday, March 25 2005 10:54 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Islamabad: Heeding to hard-line Islamic parties' demands, Pakistan Cabinet yesterday (Mar 24, 2005) approved the restoration of a column identifying a person's religion in the country's new machine-readable passports.

Revoking its earlier decision to delete the column from the new passports, the Cabinet presided over by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz approved the recommendations of a committee headed by Minister for Defence Rao Sikandar Iqbal for incorporation of the column identifying a person's religion in National Passports and the words Islamic republic of Pakistan on its cover.

The Cabinet Ministerial Committee has unanimously recommended that the religion of the passport holder may be stamped at a suitable place on the new passport without disturbing the international compatibility of the software system.

The reintroduction of the religion column was seen in Islamabad as a major victory for the hard-line Islamic alliance Muttahida Majlis-e Amal (MMA), which is currently holding the "million marches" as part of its campaign against General Pervez Musharraf continuing as the President and Chief of Army. One of its main demands was to reintroduce the religion column in the passports.

Last year, the Government removed the column for Pakistanis to identify their religion in order to create better image for the country abroad.

The MMA took exception to this as it argued that the new passport would enable banned sects like Qadianis pass off as Muslims.

The machine-readable passports were introduced last year with special software under which those seeking passports would be photographed at the passport office itself. The new passport was also intended to prevent misuse and forgery.

The reintroduction of religion column was sharply criticised by main opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, saying that the decision exposed the "duplicity" of the Government.

PPP Information Secretary, Taj Haider, said religion and nationality are two different issues and Pakistan founder Muhamman Ali Jinnah had assured that all Pakistanis would be treated equally before the law irrespective of their religious affiliation.

"By including the religious column in the passport, which is not done in most Muslim countries, the regime was allowing bigots and fanatics information they could use to harass, discriminate and otherwise mistreat minorities in the country," he said in a statement.

By restoring the religious column in the passports, "the Government was illustrating the gulf between stated policies of the regime and the ground realities," he said.

"While the regime claims that it is going to implement democracy, it imposes dictatorship, while it says that it is fighting militancy, it undermines moderate political parties, while it claims its policies are enlightened, it marks out religious minorities for harassment and discrimination, while it claims that the economy is flourishing it does nothing to reverse the hunger and poverty which is leading to economic suicides," Haider alleged.