Election Commission denies claims, says Commissioners had no direct role in conducting elections n ECP forms high-level committee to investigate allegations n NetBlocks links disruption in X service to high level resignation.

ISLAMABAD/RAWALPINDI  -  While responding to the election results rigging claims by Rawalpindi Com­missioner, Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa on Saturday said that hurling baseless allega­tions without any truth or evidence to back them up do not hold any weightage.

The chief justice’s remarks came hours after Rawal­pindi Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatha claimed that the chief election commissioner and the chief justice were also completely involved in alleged election rigging.

In a casual interaction with media persons in Is­lamabad, the CJP said: “Someone can blame me for theft or murder tomor­row. If hurling allegations is your right, give me evidence along with it too.”

Also, a group of five district returning officers have re­jected the rigging allegations levelled by former Rawalpin­di commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatha earlier Saturday. In a press conference alongside the new Pindi Commissioner Saif Anwar, the five DROs — including four male officers and a female officer —urged the Election Commission of Pakistan to conduct an inde­pendent inquiry into the rig­ging allegations.

The DROs maintained that they were not pressured by anyone and carried out the polls according to the Elec­tion Act as well as direc­tions given by the electoral watchdog. “I was working as DRO Jhelum and all the polls were conducted free and fairly,” Captain (retd) Samiullah Farooq said. DRO Chakwal Quratalain also echoed those sentiments.

The Election Commis­sion of Pakistan (ECP) has formed a high-level com­mittee to investigate the rig­ging allegations levelled by Rawalpindi Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatha.

In a press release, the electoral watchdog said the high-level committee will comprise senior election commission officials, includ­ing the secretary, special secretary, and additional di­rector general law. The ECP added that the committee will record the statements of returning officers and dis­trict returning officers and present a report to the com­mission within three days.

It further said a decision on whether any legal ac­tions — including con­tempt of ECP — would be taken against the Pin­di commissioner will be made after analysing the findings of the report. The statement said that the ECP meeting held to­day was attended in per­son by officials of the commission, while Chief Election Commission­er Sikandar Sultan Raja and Punjab ECP member Babar Hasan Bharwana attended it online. Also, a nationwide disruption in social media platform X’s (formerly Twitter) ser­vice has been reported in Pakistan due to the “es­calating unrest and pro­tests” over allegations of election fraud, accord­ing to Internet tracking organisation NetBlocks. In a post on X, the or­ganisation added that the disruption took place “following a high-level resignation and public ad­mission of vote manipula­tion by a senior election official”. Earlier, , the Elec­tion Commission of Paki­stan (ECP) flatly reject­ed the rigging allegations put forth by Commission­er Rawalpindi Liaquat Ali Chatta against the Elec­tion Commission and the Chief Election Commis­sioner. The spokesperson said in a statement that neither the ECP nor any of its officials instructed the Rawalpindi commis­sioner to change election results under his jurisdic­tion. He stated that the ECP would soon conduct a comprehensive inqui­ry to confirm the facts. The Commissioners of any division had not any direct role in conduct­ing elections; they are neither District Return­ing Officers (DROs), Re­turning Officers (ROs), nor Presiding Officers (POs). Meanwhile, Pun­jab Caretaker Chief Min­ister Mohsin Naqvi took notice of the rigging al­legations, levelled by the commissioner Rawalpin­di division, and ordered carrying out an impartial probe in this regard. The CM ordered for forma­tion of a high-level com­mittee to investigate the rigging allegations. He said the real facts should be brought to light re­garding the allegations about rigging during gen­eral election.