KARACHI, July 16: The Pakistan Peoples Party on Saturday alleged that its supporters were being detained, arrested, kidnapped and threatened in order to stop them from receiving and filing their nomination papers.

It condemned the latest modus operandi of the regime to keep its opponents away from the electoral process.

Leader of the Opposition in Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, MNAs Nawab Abdul Ghani Talpur, Mir Aijaz Jakhrani and Rafiq Jamali MNA said in a joint statement issued from the Bilawal House that the PPP workers in Dadu, Jamshoro and Tharparker districts were allegedly being persecuted and hounded by hoodlums of Federal Minister Liaquat Jatoi and Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim.

They said that the worst form of pre-poll rigging was undergoing in these three districts in a more naked form, as heavy police contingents led by the federal minister himself and DPO Sikandar Magsi were hounding party workers.

Potential candidates of the local bodies against the government nominees had been jailed and others threatened with imprisonments, detentions and police encounters if they didn’t join the ruling party, they alleged.

They claimed that so far the Nooriabad, Thana Bula Khan, Khanot, San and Amri police had arrested Nawab Khan Palari, Aslam Palari, Samargul Palari, Dur Mohammad Palari, Haji Adam Palari, Barkat Palari, Pandhi alias Haji Allah Dino Palari, Ameen Chhachhar, Layar Burfat, Mehar Burfat, Luqman Gaincho, Haji Rasool Barejo, Haji Khairo Barejo.

Luqman Gaincho was released on the conditions that he would support the ruling party. All these party supporters had been arrested and some of them implicated in false cases to stop them from filing their nomination papers, they claimed.

The PPP leaders further said that 12 shops and three hotels owned by the PPP supporters were bulldozed to ground by police teams led by SHO Ali Akbar Panhwar, Mukhtiarkar Safar Channa, Tapedar Jabbar Soomro, Malik Changeza, Malik Nadura, Alam Palari and others.

Federal Minister Liaquat Jatoi along with his candidates had also inaugurated gas supply to village Sita and Paat Sharif, they said.

Meanwhile, in a letter addressed to the Chief Election Commissioner, PPP MNA Mir Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani said that 17 TPOs and SHOs had been transferred in Jacobabad and Kashmore districts since the announcement of the election schedule.

He demanded of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to get these transfers cancelled as per his own directives.

The ECP had banned all kinds of fresh transfers and postings in government departments after the election schedule, but the regime of Arbab Rahim in Sindh has made several hundred transfers and postings. It seemed that the ECP had failed to implement its directives and authorities, he claimed.

They asked the ECP to ensure that its presence was felt on ground where the government opponents were being denied an even-handed field for participating in the local elections.

The Monitoring Committee of the Pakistan Peoples Party for local bodies’ elections has termed fixation of Rs5,000 as nomination fee for slots of nazims as a move to exclude the poor segment from the election process.

“This decision is aimed at deterring the poor from participating and contesting the local government election, which is revealing into an exercise staged for moneyed and military men,” Taj Haider, head of the committee said on Saturday.

He said it looked as if the regime wanted to fill part of its $6-plus billion trade deficit through a multi-purpose election business.

Mr Haider said the exclusion of poor from the local government election was an open violation of the Constitution, which provided equal opportunities to the people.

For a country with 40 per cent people living below the poverty line and just 20 per cent holding 80 per cent of the national wealth, such nomination fees were nothing but to keep away the poor from the whole exercise.