January 25, 2008	Friday	Muharram 15, 1429

KARACHI, Jan 24: The Pakistan People’s Party, Sindh, on Thursday called for declaring at least eight districts of the province as ‘sensitive’ and demanded deployment of army and Rangers troops in and around the polling stations falling in these districts for the Feb 18 election.

Addressing a press conference at his residence, Nafees Siddiqui, Secretary General of the PPP, Sindh, identified the districts as Karachi, Umerkot, Khairpur, Shikarpur, Tharparkar, Jacobabad, Dadu, and Sanghar.

Blaming the persisting wheat and flour crisis on the ill-advised policies pursued by former prime minister Shaukat Aziz, he said the ex-premier, his cabinet ministers and the former chief minister of Punjab be held accountable and arrested for plunging the country into the crisis.

He said that the crisis, external trade deficit and other facts and figures exposed the government’s claim of a turn around in the national economy.

He said the government had utterly failed in meeting other requirements of the country in energy, industrial production and other sectors.

Accompanied by local PPP leaders, including Rashid Rabbani, Waqar Mehdi, Saeed Ghani, Sherjeel Memon and Rafiq Engineer, Mr Siddiqui referred to the election day security and warned the caretaker government against deputing armed activists of the PML-Q and its allied parties in the garb of volunteers as suggested by certain police officers.