The government of Pakistan has restored the column of religion in passport, said Federal Minister of Defense Rao Sikanader Iqbal here yesterday. The column identifying the bearer's religious affiliation will be restored to the Pakistani passport, in a bid to avoid a clash with Islamic parties threatening a countrywide strike over the issue. Iqbal told a news conference here the recommendation to restore the religion column had been made by a special Cabinet committee headed by him after discussing the issue at length. "The committee has unanimously recommended that the religion of the passport holder may be stamped at a suitable place on the new passport," Iqbal said.He said a Cabinet meeting tomorrow would approve the recommendation. The move came ahead of a strike called by six-party Islamic alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal to protest the government's policies including the deletion of religion column from the machine readable passports, which were launched late last year. The Islamists have said the deletion of the column was a deliberate attempt by President Pervez Musharraf to damage the Islamic identity of the 150-million strong overwhelmingly Muslim nation.