Poll panel rejects extremist group’s bid to contest polls
islamabad — A radical group was denied permission on Wednesday to register as a political party just weeks before national polls, officials said.
The Milli Muslim League (MML) was launched last August to contest the July 25 elections, which will be only the second democratic transfer of power in Pakistan’s history.
But the group was blacklisted by the US in April as Washington ramped up pressure on Islamabad to crack down on extremist groups operating in the country.
On Wednesday the Election Commission officially rejected their application to register as a political party.
“The Election Commission of Pakistan today rejected the registration request by the Milli Muslim League as a political party,” spokesman Altaf Ahmed said.
A four-member bench of the commission, chaired by its Sindh member Abdul Ghaffar Soomro, on Wednesday decided against allowing the MML to be registered as a political party.
In its short order, the bench stated that the decision had been taken in light of observations of the Ministry of Interior which had expressed its reservations because of the party’s alleged links with the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s (JuD) leader Hafiz Saeed.
During the hearing, the MML denied that it had any links with the JuD or that its chief, Saifuddin Khalid, had relations with Saeed.
The MML’s lawyer also stated that the federal government has nothing to do with the registration of a political party and alleged that the PML-N had a personal vendetta with the party owing to its leader’s links with “some countries”.
The MML was founded by charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a wing of the militant group Lashkar-eTaiba (LeT).
JuD head Hafiz Saeed has a $10 million US bounty on his head.
Saeed was declared a global terrorist by the US and United Nations over his alleged role in terror attacks and is accused of links to the Al Qaeda terror network and Taleban militants.
He has denied involvement in terrorism.
The ECP had also rejected an earlier application by the MML to register as a political party which was set aside by the Islamabad High Court in March. The court had asked the commission to hear the MML before arriving at a decision.
Pakistani officials begin seizing JuD assets earlier this year, following a vote by members of the Financial Action Task Force — a global anti-money laundering watchdog — to place Pakistan on a list of nations which are not doing enough to combat terror financing.
The task force is due to meet again this month. — Agencies