June 01, 2007	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 15, 1428

KARACHI, May 31: Pakistan Muslim League-Functional President Pir Pagara on Thursday said he did not think general elections would be held this year. “I am not aware of any move towards a change in the present set up either,” he told a press conference at the Kingri House after his meeting with Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, the estranged PML leader and former prime minister.

The PML-F leader, however, repeated his earlier remarks that the possibility of the imposition of martial law could not be ruled out. “Just wait and see as not many days have passed since May 12,” he remarked.

Pir Pagara had a meeting with President Gen Pervez Musharraf during the latter’s visit to Karachi a couple of days ago.

In reply to a question, Pir Pagara said he was invited by President Musharraf and when he met him, the president was not in uniform. He said that during that meeting, he did not find the president disturbed or confused. “Nor did I gather any impression that he is weighing his options over the imposition of a state of emergency over the judicial crisis.”

The president was confident, Pir Pagara said, and remarked: “He is the president of the country, and not only of Mohajirs, apart from the fact that he hails from Delhi.”

Commenting on the judicial crisis, Pir Pagara said that he saw a repetition of the 1981 situation where, during the Zia era, judges had to take a fresh oath of their offices.

He said he had received a phone call from ‘Uncle Altaf’ and gave the latter some advice. However, the call could not last even a single minute, he added.

GOVERNOR: Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad called on chief of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional Pir Pagara at the Kingri House here on Thursday. The meeting lasted more than an hour.

Later, the governor told journalists that matters of mutual interests and a durable peace in Sindh came under discussion.