HYDERABAD, May 24: Speakers at a seminar on Thursday called for removal of the government and establishment of an interim set-up and an independent election commission to hold free, fair and transparent elections.

The seminar organised by the newly-formed Hyderabad Grand Alliance at the press club passed a number of resolutions demanding immediate release of leaders and workers of political and nationalist parties and withdrawal of presidential reference against the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

A resolution condemned attack on a private TV channel and journalists in Karachi on May 12 and demanded that the perpetrators of May 12 carnage should be arrested and a judicial commission headed by high court judges should be formed to probe into the tragedy.

Another resolution urged the government to pay the heirs of the martyrs of May 12 a compensation of at least Rs500,000 each and the injured Rs200,000 each.

The alliance convener Abdul Rehman Rajput said that hundreds of innocent people were killed in Bajaur, Waziristan and Balochistan in bombardment and charged that the government itself had armed the terrorists to carry out bloodshed in Karachi.

Sindh National Front General Secretary Gul Mohammad Jakhrani paid tribute to lawyers for initiating the struggle for the independence of judiciary and said that Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was the only chief justice of Pakistan who refused to bow to dictators.

The president of the Hyderabad chapter of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal Abdul Waheed Qureshi held Gen Musharraf and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) responsible for the May 12 carnage and demanded that the perpetrators should be arrested and awarded deterrent punishment.

A representative of Sindh High Court Bar Association, Abdul Rehman Shaikh, said that the judiciary had now rejected the decision of former chief justice Mr Muneer, and invited political leaders to address the bar.

Leader of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl) Maulana Taj Mohammad Nahiyoon said that Gen Musharraf and MQM chief were two sides of the same coin.

Sunni Tehrik leader Khalid Hassan Atari said that MQM was not a political party, it was a terrorist and ethnic group.

Awami National Party leader Haji Asmatullah Mehsud blamed ‘terrorists’ for the bloodshed in Karachi and regretted that it had not happened in Palestine or Kashmir but in Karachi, which was mini Pakistan.

PML-N leader Afzal Gujjar, Saleem Tareen of Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and a number of other leaders also spoke at the seminar.