Daily Times

In a significant development, the federal government on Monday removed the names of Murad Saeed among other Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders, who were part of the then cabinet, from Exit Control List (ECL), sources said.

Sources told the media that the federal cabinet approved the removal of their names from the ECL on recommendation of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and sent copies of a notification issued in this regard to all the authorities concerned. The names, removed from the ECL, include Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, Ghulam Sarwar, Parvez Khattak, Shafqat Mahmood, Ijaz Shah, Ali Zaidi, Khusro Bakhtiar, Azam Swati, Asad Umar, Omar Ayub, Mehboob Sultan, Fawad Chaudhry, Farog Naseem and Shireen Mazari.

However, names of PTI founder Imran Khan, his wife Bushra Bibi, Farah Gogi and Zulfi Bukhari were not removed from the list. The no-fly list or ECL is a legal tool to restrict the movement of individuals and stop them from flying abroad. The names of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders were placed on the no-fly list at the request of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in a case related to Al Qadir University Trust, which reportedly caused a loss of 190 million pounds to the national exchequer.

As per the charges, the former prime minister and others accused allegedly adjusted Rs50 billion – 190 million pounds at the time – sent by Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) to the government. The PTI chief registered Trust for Al-Qadir University Project on Dec 26, 2019.