Thousands of names to be removed from ECL: Sana

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah announced Friday the newly-elected government has brought about changes in the rules followed for putting an individual's name in the Exit Control List (ECL), and through it, several thousand people will have their names removed from it.

In his first press conference at the Interior Ministry, Sanaullah said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had formed a committee to update the rules for including a person's name in the ECL.

"Therefore, at a quick pace, Federal Minister Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Asad Mehmood, Naveed Qamar and Azam Nazeer Tarrar put forth their suggestions and the cabinet approved it," Sanaullah said.

The interior minister said if a person's name has been on the exit list for more than 120 days, then the name would be automatically removed from the ECL. He said a total of 4,863 names are in the list, and with this intervention, around 3,000 people's names have been removed.

The interior minister said the government could extend the duration of the cap by 90 days if it believes it has evidence against a person. "The government will have to present the said evidence before the ECL committee, and once they approve it, the duration will be moved forward."

Moving on, the interior minister said 30,000 people were placed on the black list and the Provisional National Identification List (PNIL). He added that since the number of people on the lists is huge, there will be changes to them as well in the next few weeks.

Sanaullah said that since 60-65pc of the people have been removed from the ECL, a similar move would be made with regard to the other lists as well.