Fact-check: Violating rules, ECP appoints retired DC as RO?

Posts circulating online accuse the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) of violating rules to benefit a politician by appointing a retired official for election duty in Balochistan’s Pishin district.

The claim is false.

Claim

“In Pishin, a retired deputy commissioner has been made the returning officer,” wrote an X user on December 21.

The post has been viewed over 74,000 times, liked 4,800 times and reposted 1,800 times to date.

“A retired deputy commissioner has been appointed the returning officer in Pishin,” wrote another X user on the same day, “Remember that Nawaz Sharif is contesting the election from Mansehra and Fazlur Rahman is contesting from Pishin.”

Identical claims also took off on Facebook.

Fact

None of the returning officers (ROs) appointed in Balochistan’s Pishin district, ahead of the February 8 general polls, are retired.

A senior official of the ECP, who asked not to be named, described the claims circulating online as “fake news”.

The official then shared documents with Geo Fact Check which listed the returning officers, who have been assigned election duties in the Pishin district.

According to the documents, which are also publicly available on the ECP’s website, Aqeel Ahmed has been named the district returning officer (DRO) in Pishin. Ahmed is still in office and is currently posted as the additional deputy commissioner of revenue.

As for the returning officers in Pishin, in NA-265, the national assembly constituency in the district, Behram Saleem, an assistant commissioner, has been appointed the returning officer. Meanwhile in the three provincial assembly constituencies of Pishin, the returning officers are: Arslan Chaudhry, an assistant commissioner, Saleem Kakar, an additional deputy commissioner general, and Dheeraj Kalra, an assistant commissioner.

All of the above-named officers are in service and have not retired to date.

The ECP official added that the confusion online might have been caused as Aqeel Ahmed’s designation carries an “r” and social media users might have mistaken the “r” as an abbreviation for “retired”.

“But here the ‘r’ stands for revenue [department] not retired,” the official told Geo Fact Check over the phone.

To further confirm the information, Geo Fact Check also reached out to Jumadad Khan Mandokhail, the deputy commissioner in Pishin. He also dismissed the allegations as “fake”.

With additional reporting by Muhammad Binyameen Iqbal.

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