January 10, 2008	Thursday	Zilhaj 30, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Jan 9: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Wednesday alleged that the government had prepared a plan to arrest party workers, who were to perform duties as polling agents on February 18, in order to stash ballot boxes with bogus votes.

Speaking at a news conference, chairman of PPP’s election monitoring cell Senator Latif Khosa and coordinator Nazir Dhoki alleged that the authorities had started registering cases against party candidates and workers on “fake and fabricated” charges of looting banks and shops and damaging the state property after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

He said the government had planned to arrest the party activists and proposed polling agents just two to three days before the elections in order to provide an opportunity to the former ruling party to stash the ballot boxes with bogus votes.

He denied that the PPP workers were involved in looting and ransacking after the assassination of Ms Bhutto.

He said instead of catching the miscreants, the government was registering cases against PPP candidates, workers and even against their supporters.