ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has decided to crack down on people making fake COVID-19 vaccination certificates to benefit those refusing to participate in the country’s official immunization drive, reported the local media on Wednesday.
According to Dawn, the National Command and Operations Centers (NCOC), which oversees the country’s pandemic response, instructed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to act against people making the certificates.
Media reports maintained in August some health department officials in Karachi were manipulating the system by registering unvaccinated people through a software provided by the National Database Registration Authority to generate fake certificates for Rs2,000.
The government also launched an app last month for anyone who wanted to verify COVID-19 certificates issued by Pakistan.
“In a statement, the NCOC said the FIA has widened its scope of investigation and launched a crackdown against such people [making fake certificates],” Dawn reported. “As a result, suspects have been arrested in different cities and the data of citizens who had gotten fake Covid-19 vaccination certificates has been collected.”
The report added the authorities were going to take legal action against the culprits after completing their investigations.
Pakistan recorded 2,714 new coronavirus cases and 73 deaths in the last 24 hours.
The country began its immunization campaign in last February and has so far fully vaccinated about 22.87 million people.
Pakistan launches crackdown against fake vaccine certificates, arrests suspects
https://arab.news/cdzz5
Pakistan launches crackdown against fake vaccine certificates, arrests suspects
- Media reports said last month some health department officials were manipulating the system to generate fake certificates
- The FIA has already arrested suspects in different cities and collected data of citizens who benefitted from these certificates
Imran Khan not a ‘national security threat,’ ex-PM’s party responds to Pakistan military
- Pakistan’s military spokesperson on Friday described Khan’s anti-army narrative as a “national security threat”
- PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan says words used by military spokesperson for Khan were “not appropriate”
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Saturday responded to allegations by Pakistan military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry from a day earlier, saying that he was not a “national security threat.”
Chaudhry, who heads the military’s media wing as director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), spoke to journalists on Friday, in which he referred to Khan as a “mentally ill” person several times during the press interaction. Chaudhry described Khan’s anti-army narrative as a “national security threat.”
The military spokesperson was responding to Khan’s social media post this week in which he accused Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir of being responsible for “the complete collapse of the constitution and rule of law in Pakistan.”
“The people of Pakistan stand with Imran Khan, they stand with PTI,” the party’s secretary-general, Salman Akram Raja, told reporters during a news conference.
“Imran Khan is not a national security threat. Imran Khan has kept the people of this country united.”
Raja said there were several narratives in the country, including those that created tensions along ethnic and sectarian lines, but Khan had rejected all of them and stood with one that the people of Pakistan supported.
PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan, flanked by Raja, criticized the military spokesperson as well, saying his press talk on Thursday had “severely disappointed” him.
“The words that were used [by the military spokesperson] were not appropriate,” Gohar said. “Those words were wrong.”
‘NATURAL OUTCOME’
Speaking to reporters earlier on Saturday, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif defended the military spokesperson’s remarks against Khan.
“When this kind of language is used for individuals as well as for institutions, then a reaction is a natural outcome,” he said.
“The same thing is happening on the Twitter accounts being run in his [Khan’s] name. If the DG ISPR has given any reaction to it, then I believe it was a very measured reaction.”
Khan, who was ousted after a parliamentary vote of confidence in April 2022, blames the country’s powerful military for removing him from power by colluding with his political opponents. Both deny the allegations.
The former prime minister, who has been in prison since August 2023 on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated, also alleges his party was denied victory by the army and his political rivals in the 2024 general election through rigging.
The army and the government both deny his allegations.
