ISLAMABAD: A semblance of unity within the ranks of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz was shaken on Friday when Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal publicly criticised his predecessor, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who had been very close to the ruling party’s high command until a few months ago.

Reports about the PML-N’s internal rifts have often surfaced since the disqualification of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, with Mr Khan going public against his party’s line on a few occasions, but none of the cabinet members had publicly criticised the former interior minister before the issue of placing names of Mr Sharif, his relatives and Senator Ishaq Dar on the Exit Control List (ECL) drew the attention of the incumbent interior minister.

Terming the mechanism adopted by former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to put names on ECL “against the law”, Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal said the federal cabinet’s approval had been made mandatory to maintain the list according to a new procedure.

Nisar assails ECL policy in National Assembly; minister says 600 ECL cases, including those of Sharifs and Dar, have been sent to cabinet

Mr Iqbal said more than 600 cases related to the ECL had been sent to the cabinet, including the names of Mr Sharif , his children and Senator Ishaq Dar, to decide if they would be placed on the ECL or not.

“Now the approval of the federal cabinet will be mandatory for putting or removing the name of any citizen from the ECL,” the minister said while talking to reporters after a function at a university.

He said the former minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, used to maintain the ECL through a committee that was “against the decisions” of the Supreme Court. “Chaudhry Nisar should know that the interior ministry makes its own decision. Neither we take dictation from anyone nor act according to our will but according to the law,” he jabbed.

He quoted his predecessor as telling the National Assembly session on Friday that the latter had formed a mechanism to maintain the ECL but the decision to put names on the ECL were being made somewhere else at present. Mr Iqbal then asserted that the interior ministry took its “own decisions without taking dictation” from anyone.

While responding to a question by Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) lawmaker Naveed Qamar during the assembly session, Chaudhry Nisar earlier said when he was the interior minister, specific criteria had been devised to place names on the ECL. Soon after assuming the charge of the minister, “an SOP was fully devised in this regard,” he said. However, he added, at present names were being placed on the ECL on the recommendations of courts, defence institution and intelligence agencies as per the new SOP.

In his tenure, he said, the ECL issue was decentralised and a committee was constituted under the chairmanship of an additional secretary to decide about placing names on the ECL. Nobody could include names on their own, he said, adding that the committee was empowered to take a decision on the recommendations though it had to disclose reasons in case of rejecting a recommendation.

The statement of the former interior minister was opposed and criticised by the interior minister while talking to the media after attending the university function.

Later, the interior ministry issued a notification that it would remove all officials holding dual nationality from sensitive organisations.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2018