ECP releases another damning report on Daska by-poll.

ISLAMABAD -- The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday formally released two inquiry reports about mysterious disappearance of 20 presiding officers during the February by-election in Daska, stating that the senior officials of the police and the district administration were 'already in knowledge of what was going on and they allowed to let the things happen as per planning.'

However, some details from one of the reports were reported by Dawn last week, that is prior to its formal release.

'The district administration was in loop regarding happening of all undesired and illegal incidents with reference to said by-election at some level,' says the 34-page damning fact-finding inquiry report against the officers, most of them already placed under suspension.

The other inquiry report has found that election officials and government functionaries acted as 'puppets in the hands of their unlawful masters'.

Says district administration, police officials were part of rigging plan

The fact-finding inquiry was launched after the Daska by-poll was marred by rigging, violence and disappearance of 20 presiding officers (POs). The ECP subsequently withheld the results and ordered re-election in the NA-75 constituency.

According to the report, the deputy commissioner (DC) of Sialkot had admitted that normally the sitting governments used to exert pressure in by-elections and 'they also approached him as well'.

'The presence of the DC, Sialkot, at suspicious location is a big question mark on his neutrality though he categorically denied it but he could not prove his absence from that suspicious place as CDR of his mobile obtained from PTA reveals that his official mobile was used in that vicinity for hours during the night between February 19 and 20,' says the report.

It further says that the 'circumstantial evidences and statements of the AEOs/POs reveal that the assistant commissioner (AC), Daska, who was also the assistant returning officer, was already aware of forthcoming events which devastated the law and order situation on the poll day and he in light of that gave certain very specific directions to the AEOs/POs which being the part of record perplexed their minds and also frightened them.'

By issuing unlawful directives to the polling personnel, the report says, the AC of Daska 'in fact was harassing the AEOs/POs, convincing them to act in the manner as per his directions and pressurising them to follow the instructions of Farkhanda...