ISLAMABAD : Under the new policy ,Shahbaz Sharif government on Saturday dropped names of over 100 dignitaries from the exit control list (ECL).
The names of dignitaries which have been excluded from ECL included prime minister , Shahbaz Sharif, former president , Asif Ali Zardari, former prime minister , Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Khawaja Asif, Khawaja Saad Rafiq and Faryal Talpur .
The former government had placed the names of opposition leaders on the ECL on the recommendations of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) . Majority of names which have been dropped from ECL by the new government were on the wanted list for years. The government has revised the policy for ECL. Under the new policy, a name put on ECL will ultimately drop from the list after 4 months..
The new policy will help government avoid criticism of the political opponents . The former government had not only put names of its political opponents on EC, but also introduced a new mechanism to penalise those who were on its target list. It introduced new lists like stop list and black list to make sure that no one wanted by any agency could travel abroad .
Prime minister , Shahbaz Sharif, was a worse victim of Imran Khan government’s ECL policy . A few months ago he was not allowed to leave for Saudi Arabia . Th airport authorities had stopped him from taking flight to Saudi Arabia saying his name was placed on stop list.