AJK Council polls: PTI hardly evades its divide becoming public

In a nerve-racking tug-of-war within the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), its president Sardar Tanveer Ilyas emerged victorious on Monday after his nominee for the AJK Council seat was preferred over another candidate backed by Prime Minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi.

Polling for the two council seats was held in the Legislative Assembly building and of the polled 50 votes Sardar Seyab Khalid of PTI secured 31 and Mohammad Hanif, the joint candidate of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), secured 19 votes.

With 32 members, the PTI had awarded its tickets to Khalid and Mohammad Asghar Qureshi, hoping against the hope that the opposition - PPP with 12 votes and PML-N with 7 votes - would contest separately thus paving the way for it to get its both nominees elected.

However, on Saturday night, PPP regional president Chaudhry Muhammad Yasin announced in a tweet that his party had agreed to support PML-N’s nominee Mohammad Hanif as joint candidate so as to ensure that the “incompetent PTI government does not get a free run.”

Following the development, the ruling PTI was left with no option but to pick any of the two ticket holders to clinch its share of one seat.

PTI sources said PM Niazi and a federal minister were in favour of Qureshi, but when Niazi summoned the parliamentary party meeting at the PM House to discuss polling related issues, much to his shock hardly 14 members turned up.

On the other hand, Ilyas also summoned a meeting of PTI legislators at a local hotel early on Monday where around 21 members were in attendance.

Speaking at the meeting, Ilyas maintained that Khalid was pledged a council seat on the occasion of PM Imran Khan’s election campaign related public meeting in Bagh city to which he stood as a witness.

The attendees, insiders said, were also unhappy at Qureshi’s nomination because many of them believed that some PTI bigwigs had pocketed little over Rs 50 million from him for the seat.

The divide in PTI was so visible that around half hour before the close of polling, none of them had cast a vote against all 19 votes polled by the opposition. The ruling party submitted an application before the election commission to enhance polling time beyond 2pm because “bad weather had hampered the travel plans of some of its members, but it was turned down after an objection by the opposition, forcing the PTI lawmakers to rush to the voting hall minutes before the closure of the gate.

Prior to that, sources said, PM Niazi kept on asking party members to vote for Qureshi, claiming that PM Imran Khan and federal minister Asad Umar had asked him on phone to convey the same message to them. However, his repeated insistence cut no ice with the legislators. On one occasion, Ilyas went on to ask him to show him the call log of his mobile to prove whether PM Khan had made him a call, the sources said.

According to sources, Ilyas had 24 lawmakers on his back and was confident that the number could increase in the event of voting between Khalid and Qureshi. However, in order to prevent exposure of internal divide, cabinet members Khawaja Farooq Ahmed, Abdul Majid Khan and Deevan Chughtai persuaded Qureshi to pull out of the fray to save the party's unity.

Though Qureshi surrendered himself to their "request" he could not hide his anger and frustration, as he was heard saying to someone in a packed room that "he had lost both his money and honour." When the PTI legislators were heading towards the voting hall, Qureshi was also heard saying to them that his money should be returned before polling.

Later, in a brief chat with media persons, Ilyas asserted that the election of Khalid was the "success of PM Khan’s vision and ideology.”

“We could have clinched the other as well, but we adhered to democratic traditions," he maintained.

Following Monday’s election, the number of PTI seats in the toothless council has increased to four while PPP and PML-N have one each seat.

Tariq Naqash

AJK police seize big cache of weapons from 2 KP residents

The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) police on Monday arrested two suspects belonging to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) after seizing a big haul of arms and ammunition from their vehicle during a routine checking at the territory's frontier towards Punjab.

Kamran Ali, senior superintendent of police (SSP) in Mirpur, told this scribe by telephone that head constable Muhammad Shafique and constable Amjad Ali stationed during the daytime at Dhan Galli picket intercepted a Toyota Corolla car, registered in Sindh, after it entered the AJK territory from neighbouring Punjab between 10:30 and 11am.

Dhan Galli village is located on the right bank of Jhelum River at the mouth of Mangla reservoir in the jurisdiction of Mirpur district’s Dadyal police station. A bridge connects this area with Rawalpindi district of Punjab.

As the two persons, later identified as Abidullah of Takht Bhai (Mardan) and Saeedullah of Tall (Hangu), showed reluctance to open the boot of their car, the policemen got alerted and upon search recovered the illegal cache in small cardboard boxes, the SSP said.  

After handcuffing the suspects, both policemen drove them to Dadyal in the seized vehicle as immediately they were unable to seek reinforcement from their police station concerned due to lack of communication facilities in Dhan Galli.  

Civil society sources in Dadyal maintained that despite being a sensitive border village, Dhan Galli was not only devoid of electricity but also strong signals of almost all cellular networks which was why the two policemen had to shift the accused to Dadyal on their own.

SSP Ali praised both of them as “real heroes” for their exemplary bravery in the face of a challenging situation and lack of resources.

Interestingly, after a short drive from Dhan Galli, one of the accused made the car stop on the pretext of relieving himself and in doing so managed to flee from the scene.

However, he was captured from a nearby jungle after a two hours long manhunt by a police team led by the local DSP Chaudhry Ansar and SHO Ammar Dar.

SSP Ali informed that the seized cache, destined for Kotli district, included three Kalashnikovs, two 44-bore rifles, two 223-bore rifles, 18 12-bore rifles, 19 30-bore pistols and 56 magazines containing more than 11,000 bullets.  

The suspects were initially booked under section 15 (3) of the Arms Act but more sections would be added to the FIR after investigations, he said.

According to him, another two persons from KP who were allegedly escorting the seized vehicle in a Suzuki Cultus had slipped out after the apprehension of their colleagues.  

“However, we are keeping a sharp lookout for them and their seizure will help us unearth and bust the whole network,” he said.

 Tariq Naqash