Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said on Sunday the government’s intention was to develop better ties with those who agree to abide by the law, The News reported.

The minister said this in response to a question at a press conference about the death of a policeman in an armed attack on a polio security team by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Tank district. Fawad, who was accompanied by State Information Minister Farrukh Habib at the presser, explained the dialogue process with the outlawed TTP.

The TTP on Friday announced an end to a month-long ceasefire with the government.

“The state is willing to develop better ties with those who agree to abide by the law,” he said, adding that the state has a clear policy to deal with parties or groups that have a terrorist or extremist background.

Fawad said the state had no confusion concerning the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan or any other similar outfits, adding: “We have fought those who were not willing to comply [with laws] in the past and can do so in future also.”

He alleged that various extremist parties and groups had also been registered with the Election Commission of Pakistan. He was of the view that there were big question marks on various parties’ sources of funding and there was “no record of funding” for the TLP. He said the JUI-F also faced serious allegations about its sources of funding.

The minister called upon the country’s top electoral authority to scrutinise and publicise the funding sources of all parties. It should scrutinise the party funding of PPP, PML-N and PTI, in the first phase and of other parties – including TLP, JUI-F – in the second phase so that the public can compare and evaluate the parties, he said.

He lamented the ECP’s scrutiny committee had examined the PTI's foreign funding source but the same committee had not made any significant proceedings in the foreign funding cases of the PPP and the PML-N.

“The PTI has submitted a record of more than 40,000 donors consisting of about 22 volumes to the ECP so that the party funding sources could be publicised,” Fawad said.

The minister alleged the PML-N had under-valued its assets as it showed the value of a house in the F-7 Sector of Islamabad as only Rs27 million, while two transactions of Rs145 million and Rs86.7 million were also made to a PML-N account in 2013, and the source of such transactions to the party account was also unknown. However, the PTI had submitted records of each of its donors, even of those who donated one dollar or 10 dollars to the PTI, he added.

Fawad claimed there was no information available on PPP’s funding from 2009-2012. He said the PPP had opened a source account and deposited Rs420 million into it without apprising the ECP about the source of the amount and that the party had also shown amounts of Rs3.6 million, Rs3.5 million and Rs2.5 million into its audited account from 2013-2015, without mentioning the source of funding.

To a query, Fawad said the local government elections could be held through electronic voting machines as the ECP should issue tender pertaining to the purchase of such machines for inviting various vendors or companies while the purchase process of such machines could be completed within a few months.