“Coronavirus is just a rumour, nothing else” says Muhammad Faisal, 21, an Afghan refugee living in Karachi’s Sohrab Goth area. “The anti-Islam forces have jointly planned this conspiracy to enact a genocide upon Muslims by injecting them with coronavirus vaccines,” says the youth, who belongs to Khan Abad village, located in the eastern part of Kunduz province in Afghanistan. Faisal is among many Afghans who still believe that Covid-19 is a conspiracy. He possesses a Proof of Registration (PoR) card for immigrants, using which they can get vaccinated anywhere in Pakistan. “My father is working in a private company and he is the only person in our family who has gotten vaccinated to continue his job,” Faisal said.

Pakistan currently faces a disturbing rise in infections. Many people in the country have received either their first jab or two shots of the Covid-19 vaccine. Many minorities, including transgender people, Rohingya refugees, Afghan refugees and Bengalis living in Karachi are either not ready to get vaccinated, or have been unable to do so. Some of the people in these communities don’t have the official identity documents to get themselves registered for vaccination. Many are still unconvinced of the safety and efficacy of vaccination.

Saira, a 50 year old trans-woman living in Moosa Colony, tells The News on Sunday (TNS) that coronavirus vaccines have lots of side effects: “I have heard many people complaining of pain in their legs, weakness and fever. A few have lost their eyesight”, she says. “The government is now pressuring people to get vaccinated.”

“My CNIC expired in 2019. A few days back I went to a NADRA office for its renewal but they refused to renew it and blocked my CNIC instead,” says Muhammad Moosa, 57, a Bengali fruit-seller. “My father had lived in Karachi since partition, but moved to Dhaka after the creation of Bangladesh, along with my brothers, but I stayed here,” Moosa tells TNS. “I was issued a Pakistani CNIC and it was renewed twice by the NADRA. But last time it was blocked because NADRA officials were asking me to bring my father or grandfather’s Pakistani CNIC, or some other documents to prove my nationality as a Pakistani citizen. Without a CNIC, how can I get a coronavirus vaccine to protect myself?” Hundreds of thousands of Bengalis, some of whom have lived in Karachi since before partition, do not have CNICs.

Muhammad Shoukat, 35, belongs to the Rohingya community, and works in a fishing export business in Ibrahim Hyderi that exports crabs to Europe, China and Thailand. “I am scared, as I have heard several rumours about the vaccines,” he says. A large population of Rohingya is settled in the coastal areas of Karach. They are associated with fishing and other trades. Most of them do not have any identification papers to get vaccination, Shoukat tells TNS.

Owing to a lack of education and awareness, transgender communities living in unprivileged areas like Korangi, Landhi, Baldia Town, New Karachi, Yousaf Goth and Surjani Town are vaccine-hesitant. Nisha Rao, 28, a transgender law student, tells TNS that some trans-people, who are educated and live in more affluent areas, such as Defense, Clifton, Tariq Road and Gulshan, have been vaccinated. Rao says that due to reports of harassment at various vaccination centres in Karachi recently, trans-people are avoiding those. She demands separate counters for trans-people, especially at the Karachi Expo Centre.

Some in these communities don’t have the official identity documents to get themselves registered for vaccination.

“I visited the Expo Centre several times to get vaccinated, but unfortunately could not,” says Abdullah Shah Bukhari, a community elder. “Of at least 150,000 registered Afghan refugees in Karachi, only one percent have gotten vaccinated.” He says not a single woman has yet been vaccinated in Afghan Basti, Al-Asif Square and other areas around Sohrab Goth. Over half a million unregistered Afghan refugees are living in Karachi and the NADRA has not been able to register them. Neither the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), nor the Federal and Sindh governments have made any arrangements in Afghan refugee camps in Karachi to vaccinate the people, Bukhari says. UNHCR spokesman Qaiser Khan Afridi tells TNS that Afghan refugees are included in the government’s vaccination programme. There are 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Around 65,000 of them live in Karachi, he says.

There are 18,000 transgender people in Karachi and almost all of them have CNICs, but only one or two percent of them are vaccinated, according to Bindiya Rana, the head of the Gender Interactive Alliance. A large number of transgender people in Karachi are suffering from various diseases, including HIV/AIDs. “I have recently gotten vaccinated, as the cases of the Covid-19 have increased exponentially in Karachi, due to the spread of the Delta variant,” she says.

The government has recently announced that to get a vaccination code, a person not having a CNIC can send his or her cell phone number, bank account number or any other identification number to 1166, via text message. On August 16, the Interior Ministry published an advertisement in all major newspapers for the registration of aliens and foreign residents. It stated that the NADRA has taken over the task of registering foreigners, residing legally or illegally in Pakistan through its fool-proof biometric information system. The NADRA, on its official Twitter account, states “your Identity, your security,” claiming that people can now apply for IDs, work-permits etc.

As many as 50,000 to 60,000 Bengalis living in Karachi have been issued identity cards by the National Alien Registration Authority (NARA), Sheikh Muhammad Feroz, founder and chairman of the Pakistani Bengali Action Committee tells TNS. According to Feroz, around 2.5 million Bengalis have been living in Karachi’s 120 localities since before the creation of Bangladesh. Around 1.8 million people were declared Bengalis and their CNICs were blocked by the NADRA, despite the fact they have been living in Pakistan since before the tragic events of 1971, he says.

Over 60 percent of the Bengalis are mostly settled in the coastal areas and are associated with fishing businesses, Sheikh Feroz says, adding that without any identification these people cannot get vaccinated. In 2004, CNICs were issued to Bengalis living in Karachi on a large scale, but since then they are facing difficulties in getting their cards renewed, he says.

Nuzhat Shirin, chairperson of the Sindh Commission on the Status of Women, tells TNS that the Commission has written letters to Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and the chief secretary to vaccinate Bengali women who don’t have CNICs or any other identifying documentation. After she discussed this issue with the National Command and Operation Centre for Covid-19, she says, the chief minister ordered that a separate counter be set up at the Expo Centre for both Bengali women and transgender people. Shirin says that the booth is now functional and that Bengali women, who do not have CNICs, can now get vaccinated.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Karachi. He can be reached on Twitter @Zafar_Khan5