KARACHI, Sept 28: The PPP has said the military regime has stepped up its “manipulative illegal steps” to hit the last nail in the coffin of local body’s election in the third phase.

The members of the PPP monitoring committee — which included leader of the opposition in Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, MNAs Sherry Rehman and Fauzia Wahab — in a statement said the elected Awam Dost councillors were being threatened and kidnapped while the Awam Dost candidates for the third phase were being harassed and blackmailed to oust them from the electoral race ahead of the polling.

It said that the Awam Dost councillors in Karachi, Larkana, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Nawabshah, Mirpurkhas, Badin, Shikarpur, Kashmor, Khairpur and elsewhere were “being hounded” by the police, which was summoning them to the police stations and raiding their houses if they failed to go there. It further said that they were also being asked to hand over their CNICs to the police.

The committee alleged that an Awam Dost councillor, Malik Pervez, from Karachi’s Saddar Town UC-10, who had filed an application for recounting, was waylaid by policemen in civvies and kidnapped. It added that he was being held hostage in the Civil Lines police station.