February 16, 2008	Saturday	Safar 08, 1429

HARIPUR, Feb 15: Former premier and PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif has said that the military takeover has always caused great harm to the integrity of the country and added that to get rid of the military interventions once far all the nation should support his party.

This he said while addressing a public gathering at Curtis Ground here on Friday. PML-N provincial chief Pir Sabir Shah, candidates Sardar Mushtaq Khan, Raja Shiraz Haider, Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan, tehsil nazim Iftikhar Ahmed Khan and workers of PML-N and PPP also attended the meeting.

He accused the PML-Q government of massacring the innocent students of Jamia Hafsa and Lal Masjid, adding that they (PML-Q rulers) had given the nation nothing but unemployment and price hike because of which the people were unable even to afford the schooling of their children.

Comparing the rates of food items with his last government the two-time premier said that the prices of wheat flour, cooking oil, bread and other daily use items were very much in the reach of common man but, he added, the prevailing skyrocketing prices had made the life of common man miserable.

“What they have given to the nation is nothing but unemployment, price hike, poverty and lawlessness”, he said, adding that despite all these “gifts” they were again begging for votes.

Criticising President Pervez Musharraf, he said the retired army chief was a person of submissive personality, recalling the nuclear tests his government carried out in 1998. He said that despite strong international pressure, he did not budge from his stand and carried out six nuclear tests against five conducted by the Indians.

He called Dr A.Q. Khan as a national, adding that the man who made the country a nuclear state was on his deathbed due to the wrong policy of the PML-Q government and President Musharraf.