HYDERABAD, March 3: The Aurat Foundation has demanded that candidates and voters should be allowed to use old NICs in the local bodies by-election as thousands of people had not been able to get computerized NICs.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club here on Wednesday, District Resource Centre coordinator Fahmida Riaz, Hyderabad District Council member Ms Yayyab Ashraf and Rehmat Khatoon said the Aurat Foundation had set up the resource centre in Hyderabad for training of woman councillors.

They said the Foundation had launched a movement to ensure women's participation in the election, scheduled for March 28. They said camps were being established throughout Sindh to facilitate women candidates in filling forms and completing other necessary formalities.

They said 70 women's seats were lying vacant in the Hyderabad district. The Foundation leaders regretted that no political parties had taken steps to encourage women to take part in politics.

They appealed to major political parties to motivate their women activists to take full part in the coming by-election. They also demanded that the government should initiate a campaign through media to motivate the people to take part in the election.