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Smudged Pak passports causing embarrassment

DUBAI — The Pakistani passport booklets being issued here have become a major cause for embarrassment to those having received it. The country’s name is smudged and, while the passport booklets issued in Pakistan these days do not state the religion, the ones issued here clearly state it, causing considerable confusion.

Pakistani expatriates in the UAE say that the ‘rubbed off’ title on the cover of the passport has been a major cause of embarrassment on several occasions.

Speaking to Khaleej Times, several people said that the Pakistan Consulate in Dubai was issuing them passports that had the name of the country smudged on the cover.

“I had applied for renewal of my passport and a new copy was issued to me. But, sad to say, in no way does it represent a Pakistani passport because the embossing on the front hard cover has been almost entirely rubbed off,” said Naila Hameed.

“Both the English and Urdu print on the hard cover has been smudged and is clearly not visible at all. Only after opening the passport will one come to know that the holder is a Pakistani national. This is a cause for embarrassment for me,” she added.

Shahid Khan, talking about the decision to omit the religion column from the Pakistani passport by the Pakistan government, said that the passports being issued here still contained the religion column while the profession column was missing.

“This is strange because I thought that the religion column would be omitted and the profession would remain,” he said.

The issue surfaced after the government started issuing machine-readable passports to common citizens, without including the routine column specified to describe holder’s religion. So far, some 300,000 new passports have been printed, of which 80,000 have already been issued.

Outgoing Counsel-General of Pakistan Amanullah Larik said, “Recently there was a problem with the embossing machine, but the issue has been resolved as the machine has been replaced. Anyone issued such a passport can bring it to the consulate and after thorough checking, we will issue another copy to him.”