HYDERABAD: Kashmiri voters being harassed, alleges PPP leader
Bureau Report
HYDERABAD, July 9: The Pakistan People’s Party has accused a terrorist organisation of harassing Kashmiri voters, threatening them with dire consequences if they come out to vote in Azad Kashmir general elections on Tuesday.
The allegation was levelled by the party’s Hyderabad chapter president MPA Zahid Bhurgari at a news conference here on Sunday afternoon.
Party leaders Mir Fateh Talpur, Amanullah Siyal, Pasha Qazi and Aftab Khanzado were present on the occasion.
Mr Bhurgari said that two PPP candidates, Dr Ahsan Masood and Mohammad Iqbal Kashmiri, were contesting the elections from LA-30 and Wadi, respectively.
He said that there were 550 Kashmiri voters in American Quarters, Shah Waliullah colony, Hali Road and Qasimabad.
Mr Bhurgari said that during corner meetings, they had been informed by the Kashmiri voters that they had been threatened with dire consequences by an ethnic organisation if they came out of their homes to cast their votes on Tuesday.
He said that the group had already made arrangements to cast bogus votes as the DPO was performing the role of a “kamdar” of the ethnic organisation.
He said that two polling stations had been set up at the Iqra School Hali Road and the government school Risala Road where arrangements had been made to rig elections.
He appealed to the chief election commissioner of Azad Kashmir to ensure that the Kashmiri voters were allowed to exercise the right of vote without any fear.
He said that the country was in the grip of an unprecedented crisis and the rulers had failed in providing relief to people.
He said that frequent breakdowns in power supply and load-shedding had not made the life of the people miserable but it had also inflicted a telling blow to industrial production of Karachi, Nooriabad, Kotri and Hyderabad industrial units.
Mr Bhurgari said that acute shortage of water had destroyed crops of Sindh.
He said that the law and order situation had totally gone out of the control of the government.
He said that the only solution lay in the dismissal of the government and holding free and impartial elections under a neutral interim government.
He demanded that popular leaders Ms Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif should be allowed to return to their country.
