‘Vote fraud’ probe: 200 printers hired two days before polls, panel told

Nothing unusual in ECP request: Punjab’s ex-chief secretary

ISLAMABAD:

Two former top bureaucrats on Wednesday testified before the Judicial Commission probing into fraud allegations in the 2013 general elections that on the request of the Election Commission of Pakistan 200 printing experts had been hired merely two days before the polls.

Abdul Hafiz Pirzada, the counsel for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and Shahid Hamid, representing the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), cross-examined Javed Iqbal, the chief secretary in Punjab’s caretaker setup, and Rao Iftikhar, the then additional chief secretary, who recorded their sworn testimonies before the three-judge panel, headed by Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk.



Before the cross-examination, the Judicial Commission sent Punjab’s former caretaker chief minister Najam Sethi outside the courtroom because he had not been summoned to record his statement on Wednesday. Similarly, only one witness at a time was allowed inside the courtroom while his statement was recorded.

On Pirzada’s query, Javed Iqbal said the then additional chief secretary, who was the liaison officer nominated by the then Punjab election commissioner Anwar Mehboob, had conveyed to him [Iqbal] on the day of the election [May 11, 2013] that Mehboob had contacted him on May 9, 2013 for providing 200 people with knowhow of printing.

Iftikhar admitted this in his statement. “I had asked the commissioners of Lahore and Rawalpindi to comply with ECP’s request. It was done on the same day with the permission of the caretaker chief minister Sethi.”

A clip from a television talk-show was presented as evidence. The footage showed Iftikhar admitting that 200 people were hired from Urdu Bazaar two days before the polls.

Iqbal believed that it was a normal request because the provincial government was supporting the ECP in the electoral process. “I’m, however, unaware if extra [election] material was printed.” Regarding transportation of the material, he said they were transported by the Pakistan Army and the Punjab government in different constituencies.



When the PTI counsel asked Iqbal if he was aware that the ballot papers were supplied on the election day, he said the ballot papers were supplied to different constituencies in Kotli Sattian, Kasur, Gujrat and Hafizabad. “We had protested before the ECP because of delay in provision of ballot papers.” He said the law required that the ballot papers be supplied three days before the election day.

Pirzada asked Iqbal if he was aware who selected the constituencies for supplying ballot papers to. “It was the election commissioner and the returning officers’ headache. I don’t know who selected the constituencies,” he said.

When it was the PML-N turn to cross-examine the witnesses, the party’s counsel, Shahid Hamid, grilled Iqbal about his political career before moving on to the issue of retention of secretaries. “You have mostly remained posted in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa,” said Hamid, to which Iqbal replied: “Yes, in K-P and Sindh.”

Iftikhar said he was the additional chief secretary from April 8 to May 27, 2013. “On my request, I was transferred to the federal government. I was the focal person for assisting the ECP in the electoral process.”

Retention issue

On the issue of retaining four secretaries of the former government, Iqbal admitted that home secretary Shahid Khan, finance secretary Tariq Bajwa, education secretary Aslam Kambo and health secretary Arif Nadeem were not transferred.

Iqbal said Shahid was not transferred because he was not facing any life threat while Tariq Bajwa was engaged in budget preparation. “Aslam Kambo had been working on a special programme on education while Arif Nadeem was working to prevent dengue outbreak across Punjab.”

When the PTI counsel asked Iqbal if he had received any recommendations for retaining any of the secretaries, the former bureaucrat quoted the then chief minister as saying that the country director of the Department for International Development had requested retaining Kambo.

To Hamid’s questions on the matter, Iqbal said the higher education secretary was transferred but the elementary school secretary was retained.

“Do you know that Arif Nadeem is the brother of the PTI candidate who was contesting the election against Nawaz Sharif?” asked the PML-N counsel, to which Iqbal replied in the affirmative. However, the judicial panel stopped the counsel from asking such questions.

The proceedings of the commission were adjourned for 11:30am on Thursday. In the next session, the former Punjab election commissioner’s statement will be recorded and cross-examined.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2015.