[Reader-list] No valid data on refugees in Pakistan’s northwest

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear All

We are told that Unique Identification Card will be a boost to
information gathering mechanism.

This hardly seems to be the case in Pakistan. As an IANS report
suggest, at least three sets of figures exists. Each dataset may have
different and differing names and thus lives of different people will
be dealt differently. Those that are visible to the Sarkaari eyes as
numbers may be obliged with some  form of relief and those that are
not will be rendered as invisible. How that erasure from the Sarkaari
memory will be dealt with is anybody's guess.

One can, for a moment, think, that anything which happens in Pakistan
is not bound to happen in India. That's true, but are we to believe
that all Indian officials are incorruptible and totally efficient to
be given a responsibility of not only documenting our individual
identities correctly, not only classifying them and categorizing them
as per appropriate policy but give them the privilege of safeguarding
these identities?

I know that this argument cannot be used to articulate a need to not
to have an identity card, but could an argument- for a blanket
issuance of identity documents to all Indians will have any veracity
if it does not benefit all and is towards the good of all.

Warm regards

Taha

http://blog.taragana.com/n/no-valid-data-on-refugees-in-pakistans-northwest-70633/

No valid data on refugees in Pakistan’s northwest

Ians
June 3rd, 2009

ISLAMABAD - The lack of valid data on the number of people displaced
by the military’s anti-Taliban operations in the country’s troubled
northwest has confirmed fears that many militants could have fled the
area by intermingling with the refugees.

At least three sets of figures exist.

The social welfare department of the North West Frontier Province
(NWFP) says it has registered 1.4 million refugees.

The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) puts the
number of displaced people at 1.73 million.

On its part, the military had estimated there were some 4,000-5,000
Taliban in three districts of the NWFP when the security forces’
action began April 26. It now says about half of these could have fled
the area in the garb of refugees after shaving their beards.

The Pakistani government has sanctioned Rs.8 billion as initial aid
for the refugees and announced each family would receive a one-time
grant of Rs.25,000.

However, the lack of reliable data on the refugees could also spark
rampant corruption.

This is because the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), under
which relief will be distributed, has been asked to waive, on a
one-time basis, the requirement of beneficiaries possessing a
government-issued smart card listing their details.

The UN estimates that some $543 million would be required for the
relief and rehabilitation of the refugees.

The security forces were ordered into action after the Taliban reneged
on a controversial peace deal with the NWFP government and instead
moved south from their Swat headquarters to occupy Buner, which is
just 100 km from Islamabad.

The operations had begun in Lower Dir, the home district of
Taliban-backed radical cleric Sufi Mohammad who had brokered the peace
deal and who is Swat Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah’s
father-in-law, and later spread to Buner and Swat.

Under the peace deal, the Taliban were to lay down arms in return for
Sharia laws in Swat, Buner, Lower Dir and four other districts of the
NWFP that are collectively known as the Malakand division.

The military says it has so far killed some 1,300 Taliban fighters in
its operations but will not lay down a time-frame for their
conclusion. Thus, it is anyone’s guess as to when the refugees will be
able to return home.