Online posts charge the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) of breaking the law to support a candidate by assigning a retired officer to the Pishin district of Balochistan for the election.
The assertion is untrue.
Declare
On December 21, a user on X commented, “A retired deputy commissioner has been made the returning officer in Pishin.”
To date, the post has received over 74,000 views, 4,800 likes, and 1,800 reposts.
On the same day, another X user posted, “A former deputy commissioner has been appointed the returning officer in Pishin.” “Remember that Fazlur Rahman is running from Pishin, and Nawaz Sharif is running from Mansehra.”
Similar accusations gained traction on Facebook as well.
Real
In the Pishin district of Balochistan, returning officers (ROs) appointed prior to the general elections on February 8 are not retired.
The assertions making the rounds on the internet, according to a senior ECP official who wished to remain anonymous, are “fake news.”
Subsequently, the official provided Geo Fact Check with documents that included a list of the returning officers assigned to oversee elections in the Pishin area.
Aqeel Ahmed has been appointed the district returning officer (DRO) in Pishin, per the records, which are also accessible to the public on the ECP website. Ahmed continues to hold his position as the additional deputy commissioner of revenue.
Regarding the returning officers in Pishin, Behram Saleem, an associate commissioner, has been designated as the returning officer for NA-265, the district’s national assembly seat. In the meanwhile, the returning officers for the three Pishin provincial assembly constituencies are assistant commissioner Arslan Chaudhry, additional deputy commissioner general Saleem Kakar, and assistant commissioner Dheeraj Kalra.
The officers listed above are all still active and have not yet retired.
The ECP official went on to say that social media users may have misinterpreted Aqeel Ahmed’s designation, which ends in a “r,” as an acronym for “retired,” which is why there may have been misunderstanding online.
Over the phone, the official informed Geo Fact Check, “But here, the ‘r’ stands for revenue [department], not retired.”
