BAHAWALPUR, June 14: Three PPP office-bearers, including the district president, suffered injuries in a clash between two rival groups here on Monday.

The trouble started at the inaugural ceremony of divisional secretariat when party's district secretary-general Tathearul Hassan beat up Sajjad Mughal.

Mr Mughal, along with a group of women, was protesting against the removal of Hameeda Ghauri from the slot of district president and the nomination of city office-bearers.

Later, a scuffle broke out between the supporters of Mr Hassan and Hameeda. As a result Riaz Dahar, his son Saleem Bhatti, who is district secretary-information, were injured. The nasal bone of Mr Bhatti was fractured.

The leaders present there intervened and tried to cool down both the parties. Khalid Kharal, Makhdoom Shahabuddin, MPA Samina Naveed, Afzal Sindhu, Zaka Ashraf, Mumtaz Matyana, Ehsan Shakir and others spoke on the occasion.

At a joint press conference after inaugurating the divisional secretariat, Ms Samina Naveed, Khalid Kharal and others vowed to contest the Punjab Assembly by-polls despite what they alleged government's pre-poll rigging, misuse of official machinery and harassment of its workers in three constituencies of the Bahawalpur district.

They claimed that their organizational set-up was strong in Yazman and Ahmedpur East to defeat the opponents, who were allegedly planning rigging as the Punjab chief minister had also undertaken a visit of Yazman and announced various concessions to 'lure' the voters

They said measures had not been announced in the budget for checking price-hike. The PPP office-bearers termed the farmers package an eyewash because neither fertilizers nor other inputs' prices had been reduced.