2022 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 4(2) are often met with refusal, discrimination and xenophobia from National Database and Registration Authority (‘NADRA’) officials.11 B Citizenship Laws of Pakistan The national identity card is the mandatory mechanism by which citizens of Pakistan are eligible to access healthcare, education and a number of essential services and documents like banking, voting, licences and passports, to name a few.12 The Manual National Identity Card was first issued by the government of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1973 and was referred to as the NIC or, subsequently, as the MNIC.13 In 2000, NADRA came into being, converting the identity card into a Computerised National Identity Card, also known as CNIC.14 The modern CNIC features a unique 13-digit number and identifies one’s citizenship.15 According to the Pakistan Citizenship Act of 1951 (‘Citizenship Act’), citizenship is determined through multiple avenues: citizenship by birth, descent and naturalisation. Citizenship by birth guarantees citizenship to all individuals born in Pakistan after 1951.16 Citizenship by descent involves granting citizenship to any individual born to a Pakistani citizen after 1951 by registering them at the nearest Pakistani Consulate.17 The Citizenship Act also provides citizenship to people who moved to Pakistani territories immediately after the partition of India and Pakistan and people who were living in Pakistan on or before 16 December 1971 following the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan.18 The Citizenship Act grants citizenship to those whose parents and grandparents were born in Pakistani territories and who have not, since 1947, been a resident of any country other than Pakistan.19 Without a CNIC, stateless persons cannot access essential services. Although much of the current stateless Bengali population of Pakistan has lived in Pakistan for more than one generation and many were born in the country, they are still refused citizenship.20 They are denied citizenship on the basis of the language that they speak, are often met with xenophobia and are considered to be outsiders in the land where they were born.21 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 ibid. ‘National Identity Card (NIC)’, National Database and Registration Authority Pakistan (Web Page, 2022) <https://www.nadra.gov.pk/identity/identity-cnic>, archived at <perma.cc/KZ9U-UP5K> (‘National Identity Card (NIC)’). Hajira Maryam, ‘Stateless and Helpless: The Plight of Ethnic Bengalis in Pakistan’, Al Jazeera (online, 29 September 2021) <https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/9/29/ stateless-ethnic-bengalis-pakistan>, archived at <perma.cc/EY5Y-8VMH>. Alizeh Kohari, ‘Pakistan’s Biometric ID Scheme is Stripping Citizenship from Thousands of People’, Coda Story (online, 2 November 2021) <https://www.codastory.com/authoritariantech/pakistan-biometric-identification-nadra>, archived at <perma.cc/B4GN-BT6E>. ‘National Identity Card (NIC)’ (n 12). Citizenship Act (n 7) s 4. ibid s 5. ibid s 6. ibid s 3. Kamal Siddiqui, ‘The Hidden Ones’, The Express Tribune (online, 27 July 2020) <https://tribune.com.pk/story/2256814/the-hidden-ones>, archived at <perma.cc/GZ6T9VW5>. Mughal and Baloch (n 6). 288