ISLAMABAD - Chairman NADRA Usman Mubeen Yousaf on Thursday informed the Inquiry Commission, probing the allegations of rigging in the general elections 2013, that there is no need of magnetic ink to verify voters’ thumb impressions.
“We do not have expertise to check whether ink was magnetic or not. We also do not depend upon either ink is magnetic or not as it does not bear effects on results of finger-print verification process,” he told a three-judge commission, headed by Chief Justice Nasir ul Mulk.
On the query of PTI’s counsel, the chairman NADRA stated that the Authority has submitted 39 reports to different Election Tribunals regarding the verification of thumb impression, wherein 97 percent readable thumb impressions are valid.
“If thumb impressions are not readable, we resort to ID card number and check whether it is valid and within particular constituency.” The chairman said the NADRA had found through that process that voters are 100 percent correct. He stated non-verification of any thumb impression does not mean that vote is bogus.
The chairman, however, admitted that they have no expert of figure print, but NADRA has employed Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) for verification of finger-print.
On the query of PML-N counsel, Usman said thumb impression may not be readable, if thumb is not clean, adding there may be other reasons like slight-cut on thumb, ‘Hina’ on women hands, scratch/line on thumb impression, wrinkles over the age or thumb not properly applied on the paper.
He also stated the AFIS system was introduced possibly around year 2005. In biometric verification process, people are asked to come on our centers to give fresh thumb impression and over 681,000 people got themselves verified.
Earlier, Pirzada appearing before the commission, stated that there should be clarification that how many ballot papers were printed over all for the National and Provincial Assemblies seats and what was the demand of the DROs and ROs.
The hearing of commission adjourned till Friday.
Meanwhile, the PML-Q withdrew DGs ISI and MI from the witnesses list.
The PML-Q had submitted the list requesting the commission to summon both the DGs for recording their statements regarding the alleged rigging in last general elections.
PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujat submitted a revised list wherein the party has not only excluded the names of both spymasters but also deleted the names of registrars as witnesses.
The PMLQ requested the commission to summon ROs, who conducted the election in different constituencies including NA-61, NA- 67, NA-104, NA-134, NA-140, NA-142, NA-164 and NA-186. These ROs should be asked that why they did not issue mandatory notices to the contesting candidates under section 39 ROPA 1976.