KARACHI, July 11: The Pakistan People’s Party on Tuesday alleged massive rigging by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly elections held in different parts of the province, particularly in the city, and termed it a mock exercise by the government to disenfranchise the Kashmiris voters residing in Sindh, especially in its capital Karachi.

These allegations were made by the PPP Sindh chapter president Syed Qaim Ali Shah while addressing a news conference at Bilawal House after the polling was completed, during which he issued a list of the polling stations where the alleged rigging took place.

Mr Shah alleged that his party would not accept the result of the massively rigged elections held for the two seats. He alleged that complaints poured in from across the city, where PPP candidates polling agents were forcibly evicted from the polling stations and ballot boxes were stuffed through illegal use of force by the armed goons of a coalition party of Musharraf’s regime.He claimed that many PPP polling agents were injured during their forcible eviction from polling stations. He said that PPP worker from Central District, Rasheed Gul, was severely wounded.

Mr Shah alleged that a white jeep, bearing government registration number (GS-3178), was seen parked at Mehmoodabad in which some armed men were allegedly issuing domicile certificates to fake voters to cast their votes.

He further alleged that MQM MPAs Tayab Hashmi and Aziz Bantwa accompanied by “armed terrorists” kept terrorising the voters at polling stations set up at Iranian Technical Government Secondary School, Lyari.Fake domicile certificates were used without CNICs at almost all polling stations.In Mirpurkhas and Mirpur Mathelo too, PPP’s polling agents were forcibly evicted from the polling stations, while in Hyderabad large number of fake domiciles were used to cast votes.

Complaints of alleged massive rigging, polling fraud, ballot stuffing, forced eviction of PPP polling agents were received by the Election Monitoring Cell of the PPP at Bilawal House and the same were sent to the Election Commission authorities in time, claimed Mr Shah.

Expressing concern over the situation, Qaim Ali Shah said that Kashmir was a sensitive issue and the rigging in the election could sabotage the struggle of the people of Kashmir. He said that PPP was contesting the election in AJK for the last 50 years and the party had also ruled twice but no such tactics was used in any election, which the MQM allegedly used in this election.