GILGIT: Police on Wednesday registered a case against former Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) chief minister Khalid Khurshid Khan for allegedly possessing a fake law degree.

Soon after the registration of the FIR (first information report) at a Gilgit police station, a sessions court in Astore granted him bail before arrest till September 11.

The FIR has been registered on the complaint of former president GB Bar Association Rashid Omar.

Mr Khan, who is also the president of the GB chapter of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), had been accused of obtaining a lawyer’s licence from the Gilgit-Baltistan Bar Council after submitting a fake law degree of University of London and an affidavit in the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Islamabad, to get equivalence certificate in 2011.

He contested the GB Assembly elections from Astore and was later elected chief minister of the region in 2020.

According to the FIR, when the Higher Education Commission sent the degree for verification to the University of London, the university declared it fake.

The HEC later withdrew the equivalence certificate issued to Mr Khan on June 12, this year, blacklisted his name and also blocked his CNIC.

On July 4, the Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Court had disqualified Khalid Khurshid from membership of GB Assembly after his law degree proved to be fake.

According to the FIR, the former chief minister had also misled the Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Court by submitting fake equivalence certificate and the affidavit to obtain stay order, thus committing “fraud and forgery.”

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2023