Karachi-born Bengali student fails to become doctor due to blocked CNIC

KARACHI: A Karachi-born Bengali student, who secured A-1 in her matriculation and intermediate exams, failed to get admission at a medical college after her national identity card was blocked, ARY News reported.

Saima, a Karachi-born Bengali student, had dreamt of becoming a doctor and struggled day and night for it without getting tired.

Following her untiring efforts, Saima secured an A-1 grade in her matriculation and intermediate examinations.

After successfully completing her matriculation, he applied for a computerised national identity card which took almost five years after going through complicated legal procedures.

The talented student exhibited extraordinary academic performance in the intermediate examinations by securing an A-1 grade in pre-medical studies.

She came near to achieving the milestone that she had dreamt of and decided to get enrolled at a medical college. However, Saima faced a distressful situation after her national identity card was blocked exactly at the time of medical colleges’ admissions.

The situation has broken the soul of the talented student as her dream remained incomplete for becoming a doctor.

It is the story of a talented student, Saima, who is among the Bengali community numbering around two million in Karachi but they do not possess a CNIC despite their claimed eligibility and are deprived of official recognition and citizenship in which their children suffered the most.

Bengali community had been issued manual ID cards in Pakistan in 1973 after the 1971 war before the digitisation of the NICs through the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) in 2000.

The Bengalis fell into the category of aliens after the establishment of the National Alien Registration Authority (NARA) to register immigrants and foreign residents. The miseries of Bengalis remained unaddressed even after the merger of NARA and NADRA.