Overseas Pakistanis serve defamation notice to CEC, ECP members

ISLAMABAD: Overseas Pakistanis have served a legal notice to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja and other members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) over declaring them as non-Pakistanis, ARY NEWS reported.

The notice was served by the Pakistani diaspora through their counsel Advocate Azhar Siddique and it stated that abolishing rights of overseas Pakistanis by the ECP was against the law.

“The ECP has declared Pakistani diaspora as non-Pakistani,” it said, adding that this measure has humiliated the diaspora.

The election commission should apologize to the overseas Pakistanis declared non-Pakistani and in case of refusal, defamation cases will be filed in courts against them, the notice served to CEC Sikandar Sultan Raja and ECP members said.

Previously, multiple PTI donors, mentioned in the ECP’s verdict, have pointed out flaws and errors in the verdict, claiming they are not foreign nationals and have donated money using legitimate channels.

The owner of the National Food Processing Factory Shoaib Ahmed Basra said that his company which donated funds to PTI is located in Bahawalpur, and the ECP has deemed it as a foreign fund. Shoaib said that he donated Rs10,500 to PTI in 2011.

My company has been misappropriated in the foreign funding list as a Canadian company, he added.

Another donor Asif Khan said that he donated $100 to the party in 2013 in his personal capacity via his PayPal account, however, ECP has named his former company Prabust Inc in the foreign fundings list of the case.

Another PTI donor Beenish Faridi, who donated PTI $250 in 2013, termed the ECP verdict ‘outrageous’. She is not a foreign national as deemed by the ECP, she said in a video message.