Police collecting data of clerics
The News, October 12, 2008
By Usman Manzoor
ISLAMABAD: A massive operation has been launched by police to collect fingerprints, photographs and biometric data of people associated with religious institutions, mosques or Jihadi organizations.
Spokesman for the Interior Ministry and Director General National Crisis Management Cell Brig (retd) Javed Iqbal Cheema told The News the provincial governments were collecting data of all those people, who had ever been affiliated with religious organisations or were still working for Jihadi outfits. “This is part of the anti-terror move that the government had started,” he said. People having affiliation with religious organisations, either banned or not, are being called to the district police offices for taking their photographs and prints of all the ten fingers.
The previous government had launched a fingerprints’ identification project worth Rs 1.1 billion, which is now being utilised by the police for data collection of clerics, Muazzans, religious activists and people affiliated with Jihadi organisations. The registration of religious seminaries was also a part of the same project, said a police officer. The Interior Ministry had registered more than 12,400 of the total 13,500 Madrassas across Pakistan.
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