Arshad Khan aka the blue-eyed chaiwallah who shot to viral fame last year, is in trouble with Pakistani authorities.
Khan bagged modelling and acting projects after a photograph of him, taken in Pakistan, went viral after it was posted on Instagram in October 2016. However, Pakistan claims he is an Afghani national who used fraudulent documents to obtain a Pakistani identity card.
Geo News quoted sources from the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) as saying that Khan does not possess legal documents to stay in Pakistan.
Though his Facebook profile had photos of him receiving the Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) at the NADRA headquarters in Islamabad in June this year, the officials now say he received his CNIC using “fraudulent documents”.
According to the report, Khan’s passport application was held up over some “red flags” in his documents but he used “celebrity status” to pressurise the officials into issuing him a passport.
The NADRA’s investigational unit’s eye claims that Khan’s family hails from Kandahar, Afghanistan. However, the chaiwallah-turned-model denied the charge. He told Geo News that his father migrated to Saudi Arabia from Pakistan in 1984 and then returned after 13 years.
I am “very much a Pakistani national,” he told the channel, but failed to provide any proof.
Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan, Omar Zakhilwal has also confirmed that Arshad Khan is an Afghan national.