NDS shares Kuchi candidate’s case with IECC

KABUL (nomad) candidate, with the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC), a source said on Tuesday.

Rasoul Khan Kuchai is the son of former jihadi commander Haji Manji Kuchai and is contesting the Oct 20 lower house elections from the Kuchi electoral constituency.

A credible NDS source in Kabul, who declined to be named, told Pajhwok Afghan News that they had shared the dossier of Rasoul Khan Kuchai with the IECC.

The source said Khan Kuchai was accused of having links with Pakistan) and there were credible documents and evidence against him.

The official said the NDS had asked the IECC to remove Khan Kuchai from the list of candidates.

However, Khan Kuchai rejected the NDS allegations as false rumors which he said had been in circulation in the past as well, but the IECC had rejected them. “Our history, family and our lives are known to all the people since the era of jihad.”

He said no one had formally shared anything regarding the allegations with him so far.

IECC spokesman Ali Reza Rouhani told Pajhwok they had requested information from all institutes including security organs about candidates.

He said they could not comment about a single person and cases of many candidates were being analyzed and some had already been decided and others under consideration.

Candidates found with new cases have been invited to the IECC on Wednesday, he added.

About Rasoul Khan Kuchai’s case, he said: “We cannot comment about a specific candidate.”

On the other hand, a number of Afghan Facebook users also posted some suspicious photos of Khan Kuchai. One photo shows Khan Kuchai stands with a Pakistani police officer in his office. Another photo shows him in a guns selling shop.

A video clip of Haji Manji Kuchai, father of Khan Kuchai, was recently posted on social media. The video shows Manji Kuchai talks to a group of people and supports Pakistan over Iran, Russia and India.

“Pakistan is the country where our grandfathers had lived, we were refugees there, our forefathers fought against India over Kashmir,” he says in the video.

He tells the people he can solve passport and visa problems of their patients traveling to Pakistan through Torkham border and they would be able to use only their identity cards to travel to Pakistan.

He in the video says he had links with the ISI during the Jihad era but now he has no links.

mds/ma