KARACHI, Aug 26: The Sindh chapter of Pakistan People’s Party has accused the government of deliberately unleashing armed attacks on its leaders and activists, killing and injuring many of them in the second round of local body elections across the province, and threatened to consider other options to counter such moves.

The party did not rule out the possibility of launching a nationwide campaign if the ARD leadership so decided.

Condemning the widespread violence, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, chief of the PPP Parliamentarians, said that the regime had crossed all limits in the abuse of power and that the process had eroded people’s confidence in the democratic process and the party might be compelled to consider other options.

He said that while PPP workers were killed and injured all over the country, the government machinery was busy in implicating PPP leaders and workers in false cases. He accused the government of undermining the foundations of the state and said that the ARD in its meeting on Aug 29 would discuss all options in the light of the heavily rigged elections.

He said that if the ARD decided the PPP would be prepared to launch a movement against the dictatorship because it believed that ‘democracy and dictatorship cannot go together.’

Meanwhile, the party leadership alleged that Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s armed activists were sent in government vehicles to Hyderabad and other parts of the province where they attacked and took control of many polling stations and stamped ballot papers at gunpoint.

They said that a few minutes before the polling time was over, MQM activists allegedly attacked police stations to give the impression that it had been done by PPP supporters.

The PPP monitoring committee alleged that had the Chief Election Commissioner taken notice of the numerous PPP complaints such pre-meditated violence would not have been unleashed by the coalition partners which resulted in death of several people and injuries to 70 others in Sindh.

They said that PPP MNA Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah and MPA Jam Saifullah Dharejo were attacked by armed government supporters in Sukkur while MPA Dr Tariq Masood Arain and Naeem Kharal were detained in Nawabshah and Khairpur.