Pakistan will register all foreign nationals – interior minister 

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said on Thursday the government had decided to register all foreign nationals living in Pakistan.
The move comes as the interior ministry wants to track up to 50,000 people who entered the country in the seventies but whose whereabouts are unknown, Ahmed said, alleging that the government had recently arrested some Afghans who had fake ID cards.
Pakistan has provided millions of Afghans with refuge for decades.
“Interior Ministry has decided to register all foreign nationals, who so ever he maybe,” Ahmed told reporters in Islamabad. “Approximately 40 to 50 thousand people entered in Pakistan in last 70 years,” and authorities don’t know about them “so we are going to register all foreign nationals and have made visa process online.”
In April this year, Pakistan launched a nationwide verification exercise for 1.4 million Afghan refugees to distribute new Proof of Registration smart cards. Pakistan also hosts nearly a million undocumented Afghans.
Ahmed said Pakistan had allowed foreign nationals to open bank accounts and get cellular phone connections by showing their “alien cards,” issued under the National Alien Registration System to legally register, document immigrants and other foreign residents in the country.