Source/Credit: Various
By Imran Jattala | March 21, 2011
Someone at Pakistan's National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) - which is responsible for the registration of population and issuance of identity cards in Pakistan - may be involved in helping false voter registration on minority ID cards, Ahmadiyya Times has learned.
Several activists monitoring voter registration activity for the upcoming general elections in Pakistan, allege that fake votes have been registered on Ahmadi IDs cards.
NADRA is the only organization that maintains source records containing the combined information about citizens' religion and NIC number in its databases.
Due to the discriminatory laws, Ahmadis have been rendered unable to participate in the democratic process in Pakistan and because of their faith the entire community has been forced onto a separate voter roll.
The laws of Pakistan require Ahmadis - who profess Islām as their faith - to denounce their spiritual leader as ‘imposter’ in order to register as a Muslim and participate in the electoral process.
Due to the restrictions on profession of their faith, the Ahmadis of Pakistan do not register to vote and this leaves the separate Ahmadī electoral lists susceptible to fraud by the same militants and political parties that participate in persecution of the community.
The fraud might be so extensive, the activists fear, that all or most Ahmadi IDs cards may have been registered as voters.
Reportedly, the Election Commission of Pakistan provides a process to verify citizens' voter status by sending voter’s National Identity Card number to 8300 via SMS and system sends back the status information.
Afzaal Ahmad, who initially alerted about the possible fraud, learned it from his friends and first verified his own voter status.
“I did it immediately and, surprisingly, found that my vote was registered,” wrote Ahmad, a software engineer from Lahore, Pakistan in an email to Ahmadiyya Times.
Ahmad, a software engineer from Lahore, Pakistan, said his vote was registered in an area where he never lived, nor belonged to.
“My vote is registered from Rajgarh Lahore, a place near Main Ahmadi mosque, Dar-ul-Zikr in Lahore,” Afzaal Ahmad wrote.
Dar-ul-Zikr, a large Ahmadiyya Mosque in Lahore was a victim of terrorists’ attacks in May 2010 when 87 Ahmadis were gunned down by jihadist belonging to Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan.
Afzaal Ahmad said he doesn't go to Dar-ul-Zikr, not even for Friday prayer, because it is far away from his home.
“I offer Friday Prayer in Bait-ul-Noor,” Afzaal Ahmad confirmed.
According to Afzaal Ahmad, some Ahmadis in Lahore and other places have learned their votes are registered from Rabwah, (a town in the Punjab with majority Ahmadiyya population,) but they don't belong to Rabwah.
It is widely suspected that the forces behind registering false Ahmadi voters will then cast fake votes on the election day, and pretend those are legitimate Ahmadi votes because the votes were cast near Ahmadi majority city of Rabwah or near large Ahmadi mosques in other cities.
Ahmadis suspect that this is an effort to elect people who will claim they are elected representatives of the Ahmadī minority in Pakistan.
-- Pakistan: Organization under Ministry of Interior registers fake voters on Ahmadis ID cards.
-- Ahmadiyya Times
-- By Imran Jattala: Follow on Twitter" @IJattala
-- Contents use allowed with full citation and hyperlink back to this post
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Well that's true I swear, I checked and received sms which says that I belonges to chiniot but I had never been there.
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