MULTAN, Oct 22: PML-N’s acting chief Makhdoom Javed Hashmi has demanded that a commission should be formed to probe into the Kargil episode.

Speaking at a press conference here on Wednesday, Mr Hashmi claimed that it was a decision of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy to make public the contents of the letter written to the politicians by ‘some people in the GHQ’.

He said the letter was first circulated among the participants in ARD meeting. “I just obeyed the ARD decision to read the letter in a press conference”.

Mr Hashmi said the commission on Kargil should work on the pattern of Hamoodur Rehman commission, which was constituted to unfold the causes of Dhaka fall.

He said whenever his party would regain power, it would invoke Article 6 of the Constitution to take the generals, who subverted the constitution, to task for high treason.

Mr Hashmi said that the ‘accomplices’ of the generals in the judiciary, who gave them excuses to usurp rights of the people, would also be taken to task for high treason.

Rejecting the claims of official economic managers about progress during the last three years, Mr Hashmi said no country could advance without strengthening its democratic institutions and presence of a civil society.

“If few new roads are the yardstick to gauge performance of a government, we should recall the British colonial masters who gave the area such an infrastructure which is still backbone of the country’s communication system,” he asserted.

He said the regime’s economic managers often boasted of amassing $11 billion foreign reserves but “I question that why $9 billions of them have been transferred to the foreign banks”.

He said inflation and price-hike had rendered majority of the country’s population under financial crunch to make the both ends meet.

He said a sizable quantity of the current cotton crop had been ruined because of either non-availability or availability of spurious pesticides at the crucial stage of boil formation.

Answering questions, he said everyone, including generals, politicians, judges and bureaucrats, should make their assets public so that the people of Pakistan could know that who were actual plunderers of their wealth.

He said ARD would launch its struggle for the restoration of democratic rule in the country through a mass contact campaign from Peshawar on Oct 24.

He said that the movement would be geared up after Eidul Fitr. He said the alliance had a principled stand on the Legal Framework Order that no legislation could be made in the presence of this controversial order.

“The LFO is to prolong an illegitimate rule of a retired general,” he remarked.

No salaries: As many as 30 officials working with the Multan SCARP irrigation circle have not been paid salaries for the last two months.

The Multan circle is headed by an official of the rank of superintending engineer (SE). The SE went on a two-year leave some two months ago. But the provincial irrigation department authorities have yet to appoint a successor, a SCARP official told this reporter.

He pointed out that the authorities had not even appointed an officiating in charge of the circle. Therefore, the 30 employees working in the SCARP circle have not been able to draw their salaries for the last two months.

He urged the authorities concerned to immediately arrange disbursement of salaries among SCARP officials.