NA security can’t get behind the veil

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Chaudhry Amir Hussain, speaker of the National Assembly, said on Thursday that security officials of the NA were facing problems checking women MNAs who wore veils.

The speaker said this after MNA Zulfiqar Gondal of the Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians said on a point of order that the government should ensure that the National Database and Registration Authority did not issue computerised national identity cards (NIC) to women without their photographs because many fake votes were balloted on women’s NICs.

Mr Hussain asked Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidery to guide the chair if Islam allowed women to have their photographs on their NICs. However, the speaker added that it was mandatory for women to have their pictures on their passports. Maulana Haidery said that women’s picture on NICs is not allowed in Islam but pictures on the passports were an international obligation because every country had its own rules and laws.

The speaker said that security officials of the NA had made frequent complaints that it was hard for them to identify who was entering the house if the women wore veils.

MNA Razia Aziz of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal said that it would be difficult for girls and women who wore the veil to have their photographs on NICs. She said that the NWFP education board had directed female students to have their photographs attached to the examination forms due to which many students did not appear in the exams. She said that government should not declare it mandatory for women to have their photo on NICs.

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