April 10, 2002	Wednesday	Muharram 26, 1423

HYDERABAD, April 9: The city chapter of the Pakistan People’s Party at a meeting held here on Monday night predicted the masses would not participate in the presidential referendum and added however, in order to save their employment, government officials would fill the ballot boxes with bogus votes.

It demanded of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to take suo motu action on the unconstitutional and illegal acts of the President.

The meeting severely criticized the President for accusing PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto of loot and plunder of national wealth and therefore, he declared that she would not be allowed to return home.

It said Benazir was undisputed leader of the masses and no one could stop her through the power of the uniform from coming back to her motherland.

It said the people would cross all the barriers to see her back in their midst.

The PPP meeting regretted notwithstanding tremendous sacrifices rendered by the Bhutto family, the powers that be had always resorted to character assassination of the members of this family.

It said the masses would not accept any election without Benazir being a part of it.

The meeting also rejected the new delimitations and resolved to challenge the demarcations for the national and provincial assembly seats.

It also criticized the Election Commission for failing to provide necessary documents about the new delimitations and opined that this delay was aimed at rigging the election.

Zaheeruddin Ghumman presided over the meeting which was attended by Zahid Ali Bhurgari, Saleem Shah Bukhari, Pasha Kazi, Amanullah Siyal, Mehboob Sangi and others.

ELECTION TRIBUNAL: The Hyderabad Election Petitioners Action Committee has appealed to the President of Pakistan, chief election commissioner and the chief justice of Sindh High Court to appoint an election tribunal without any further delay to decide more than one hundred election petitions of Hyderabad.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club here on Tuesday, the leaders of the action committee said that the local bodies elections were held on May 31, 2001, in which many malpractice were witnessed and even those candidates who were declared elected earlier, their results were changed on the next day.

They said that to decide the election petitions, the government had appointed an election tribunal which had started working in July 2001 and 120 aggrieved parties had filed their election petitions.

They, however, regretted that notwithstanding an assurance by the election tribunal to decide the petitions within 90 days, not a single petition had been decided even after ten months.

They pointed out that the tribunal had fixed only one day in a week to hear the petitions and the district and sessions judge of Badin, who was appointed as election tribunal to hear the petitions of Hyderabad district, w