March 12, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 8, 1424

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RAWALPINDI, March 11: The People‘s Rights Movement (PRM), on Tuesday condemned the ‘kidnapping’ and ‘thrashing’ of Rana Sanaullah Khan, the deputy leader of the opposition in the Punjab Assembly.

A PRM statement said the kidnapping was done “ostensibly by the same forces that had made a mockery of the democratic process over the past few months”.

It is the establishment itself that has made every effort to subordinate the political process and to ensure that no meaningful structure of people‘s power may erected, the statement added.

“It is, therefore, essential that all efforts should be made by those committed to the political process to thwart the attempts being made to destroy it.”

The People‘s Rights Movement particularly urged the political parties to engage with and support people‘s movements “to generate the legitimacy to be able to defy the authoritarian advance of the establishment”.

It said the recent experience of the Senate election exposed once and for all the manner in which the establishment had manipulated the electoral politics in this country to maintain its monopoly on decision-making and resource-allocation.

However, it said the tactics employed to intimidate the opposition had reached “new lows” with the kidnapping and harassment of Sanaullah Khan.

“The establishment has systematically tried to weaken those parties that have been opposed to its efforts to consolidate power, including the Pakistan Muslim League (N) and the Pakistan People‘s Party (PPP),” the statement said.

“Elected members of these parties have been coopted into deserting their parties, and the latest incident proves that the establishment has little patience for democratic norms and ethics and the fundamental right to dissent,” it said.