NADRA sends team to Jakarta for boat victims

Islamabad—National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has dispatched a special team to Indonesia to help identify the dead bodies of Pakistanis lost their life in boat tragedy. Deputy Chairman NADRA Tariq Malik on Saturday told APP that the team has been sent to Indonesia on the direction of President Asif Ali Zardari. He said that the team is equipped with state of the art bio metric identification system and would take finger and facial prints of the victims.

He said the prints would be sent to NADRA and run it with National Data Ware House for citizen, for identification of the dead bodies. Minister for Interior A Rehman Malik has directed the authority and the Pakistan Envoy in Jakarta to help families of the victims by facilitating at earliest.

Meanwhile, families of the board victims who were worried have expressed a sigh of relief on the quick response of the authority for identification of the bodies. With 200 passengers now believed to be dead, efforts are afoot to repatriate Pakistani survivors of last week’s boat tragedy in Indonesian waters. The Pakistani Embassy in Indonesia is making arrangements to help out the survivors and to get custody of the recovered bodies, revealed a message sent on Tuesday to Islamabad by the embassy in Jakarta.

A tragic incident occurred last week when a boat carrying about 250 asylum-seekers from Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan sank in the sea near Prigi, Trengglek, East Java, Indonesia. At present, six Pakistani survivors are reportedly being kept in detention centres in the city of Surabaya and the surrounding places. The embassy team visited the Police Hospital, Surabaya on December 23 and met with Police High Commissioner Dr Didi Agus Mintadi and Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) Department, Jakarta Executive Director Dr Anton Castilani.

Dr Mintadi requested the head of the consular team to provide photographs, fingerprints/dental records and DNA reports of the parents of the deceased for matching and reconciling the same with the records obtained from each body. Some of the survivors may be allowed to visit the hospital mortuary to identify the bodies, Head of Chancery Zafar Iqbal said. While Dr Mintadi welcomed the suggestion.

Pakistan Observer, Wednesday 11 January 2011
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