LAHORE, Jan 6: The All Parties Democratic Movement will hold references for the late Benazir Bhutto in all districts of the country on Monday (today) and raise their voice against implication of the PPP workers in cases of arson and plunder.

Announcing this at a press conference here on Sunday, Tehrik-i-Insaaf provincial president Ahsan Rashid, National Workers Party leader Naeem Shakir and Labour Party Pakistan spokesman Farooq Tariq said the leaders of the APDM component parties would pay homage to the former prime minister for her efforts for the restoration of democracy and welfare of the masses.

The APDM, they said, had also decided to hold a labour conference in the provincial metropolis on Jan 17 to discuss unprecedented gas and electricity loadshedding which was fast crippling the economy and resulting in layoffs of hundreds of thousands of workers due to suspension of industrial production.

They said the havoc caused to the industrial sector by gas and power loadshedding and shortage of flour had made the election meaningless. Release and reinstatement of the detained judges, lawyers and political workers and resignation of President Pervez Musharraf was the only solution to the problems, they said.

The opposition parties also criticised the caretaker government in Sindh for launching a “victimisation campaign” against the PPP activists after the assassination of their leader Benazir Bhutto and implicating over 400,000 workers in cases of arson and loot.

The Sindh caretakers had started making efforts to suppress the grief-stricken PPP workers after the postponement of the general election. The PML-Q, Functional and MQM-controlled district governments were playing a key role in intimidation of the PPP workers in all districts, except Nawab Shah and Jamshoro, they alleged.—Reporter