ISLAMABAD: As many as 54 former legislators have found to be holding fake degrees, revealed by Higher Education Commission (HEC) in a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim.
The Chairman HEC Dr Javaid R. Laghari said in the letter that out of the 55 academic certificates submitted to the commission for verification 54 have found to be fakes.
Dr Laghari said that degrees of 189 former parliamentarians have remained to be verified because despite repeated reminders they have not submited them to the HEC or the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
The chairman said the list of 54 politicians holding fake certificates include the names of 18 members of the now dissolved Punjab assembly, 14 of the National Assembly, seven of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly, six of the Balochistan assembly, five sitting members of the Senate and four former members of the Sindh assembly.
The senators whose degrees have been declared as fakes are Mir Israrullah Zehri, Habbat Khan Marri, Rehana Yahya Baloch and Nawabzada Muhammad Akbar, all from Balochistan. It also includes the name of Mir Wali Muhammad Badini, who died of heart attack in December last year.
The National Assembly’s former members found to be holding fake degrees are Mir Humayun Aziz Kurd, Akhundzada Chitan, Syed Salman Mohsin, Hayatullah Khan Tareen, Ghulam Dastgir Rajar, Deewan Ashiq Hussain Bokhari, Malik Amir Yar Warn, Mazhar Hayat, Javaid Hussain Shah, Mir Ahmadan Khan, Moulvi Agha Muhammad, Nasir Ali Shah, Haji Roziuddin and Sardar Muhammad Umar Gorgage.
Prominent among the 189 politicians whose degrees have yet to be verified are Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Khurshid Ahmad Shah, Mian Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo, Samina Khalid Ghurki, Sumsam Ali Bokhari, Mehreen Anwar Raja, Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, Talha Mehmood, Rukhsana Bangash, Qasim Zia and Nadia Gabol.
DND
