The Ministry of Interior has withdrawn powers from the FIA to put people on the Exit Control List (ECL) - an authority which the investigating agency earlier had under which Ahmed Mukhtar - the present Defense Minister was denied exit from Islamabad airport for China last week.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who is one of the PPP Ministers affected by the NRO verdict of the Supreme Court, announced the decision today regarding withdrawal of powers from FIA to deny people from traveling abroad. He was talking to the media at his ministry in the Capital. The Interior Ministry of which he is the political head will now have the sole authority to deny or remove people from traveling abroad while cases remain pending against them.

About the white-collar crime cases pending against him, Rehman said he was facing merely two baseless cases. “I will prove innocent in these cases”, Rehman said, adding he forgives the people, who had prepared these false cases against him.

Malik said that the name of Federal Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar was placed on the Exit Control List by the previous government. However, his name is not present on the ECL now.

PPP’s central executive committee has announced that its Ministers will not resign from their positions of authority, while remaining affected by NRO’s withdrawal and Supreme Court’s subsequent verdict against the controversial ordnance.

Pakistan’s political system does not yet have a tradition where people in power and authority tainted by allegations and charges resign due to erosion of moral authority and or public demand. We are innocent unless proven guilty, said PPP’s NRO affected individuals, charging that there existed conspiracies to destabilize their government.