Federal cabinet to decide on exclusion of 172 names from ECL on Thursday

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ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet, under the chair of Prime Minister Imran Khan, will decide the fate of 172 people on Thursday, whose names were recently included in the Exit Control List (ECL), in a meeting.

The cabinet will take up a 26-point agenda which includes the recommendations of a review committee on the inclusion of 172 names in the ECL.

The cabinet last week referred the issue of the inclusion of the names of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari, Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Member of the National Assembly (MNA) Faryal Talpur, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah along with other politicians in the ECL to a review committee to give its recommendations in the wake of the Supreme Court’s order to exclude the names from the list.

The JIT Report

The JIT probing the money laundering case has held the Zardari Group, Omni Group and Bahria Town responsible in its report submitted to the apex court and suggested that all the suspects in the case be placed on the ECL.

In view of the JIT findings, the federal government on Friday released a list of 172 suspects whose names were placed on the no-fly list. The list included PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto, party’s Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, presidents of a number of local banks, and other former ministers, bureaucrats and businessmen.

Irked at the government’s move, the chief justice wondered how all these individuals could be barred from flying.

“How can the chief executive of the country’s second-biggest province be put on the ECL?” Justice Nisar asked the attorney general.