ATTOCK, July 30: The security personnel have identified 10 candidates belonging to banned religious organizations, who had filed nomination papers in different union councils in the district, and informed the district returning officers (DROs) and district coordination officer (DCO) for rejection of their papers, sources told Dawn on Saturday.

The Election Commission and the government had announced that the candidates belonging to banned outfits could be barred from contesting the local bodies elections. Sources said during the scrutiny of nomination papers, security branch of district police identified Iftikhar Ahmed Farooqi, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, Alaf Din, Khalid Ahmed, Ghulam Serwar and Mohammad Raees as activists of the banned Sepah Sahaba Pakistan, who had filed nominations for the seats of councillor from union council Malowali, UC-34 Fatehjang, UC-61 Jand, UC-3 Attock city and UC-10 Shakardara, respectively.

The security personnel have also detected Sahid Sadaqat and Tasawar Hussain, activists of Harkutul Mujahideen, who had filed nominations for naib nazim UC-27 Hassanabdal and for councillor from UC-67 Basal, respectively, the sources said.

Similarly, two activists of banned Tehrike Jafaria Pakistan, Ghulam Shabir and Hassan Abbas, have filed their nominations for nazim UC-63 Jaba and for councillor UC-61 Jand, the sources maintained.

The DRO and DCO have forwarded the particulars of all such candidates to the respective returning officers for action as per relevant rules and polls mode of conduct. It is expected that the nominations of all such religious outfit activists would be rejected during the scrutiny process, sources added.

It was also observed that in case of rejection for the seat of any nazim or naib nazim, the nomination of his other joint fellow candidate would be rejected automatically as per rules of ECP.

When contacted, District Police officer (DPO) Attock Capt (retired) Zafar Iqbal Awan confirmed the report and said as per recent directives of the president and the ECP, the police kept vigil on the movement of religious outfit activists to restrict them from participating in elections. He said a number of activists, who had filed their nominations, had been detected and their particulars were forwarded to the DROs and DCO Attock for further legal action.