HYDERABAD, Sept 4: The Sindh Democratic Forum (SDF) on Tuesday demanded that General Pervez Musharraf should stop political manipulation and immediately quit the offices of army chief and the president in the best interests of 160 million people of Pakistan.

In a statement mailed to Dawn the forum urged Gen Musharraf to allow all the exiled political leaders to return, drop cases registered against them and hold fair and free elections under a neutral caretaker set-up and effective and non-partisan election commission.

The forum said that the security of life and property, livelihood and well-being of the people depended upon rule of law and supremacy of constitution.

It said that the tall claims made by present regime that Pakistan had been converted into a haven of investment, peace and prosperity were defied by the spectre of law of jungle prevalent within the country today.

People never believed in the promises made by Gen Musharraf in his first speech on Oct 19, 1999 but what they were witnessing today was even more unbelievable that 300 armed and trained soldiers of Pakistan Army with a colonel and three majors in command had let themselves getting abducted by local Taliban without firing a shot, the forum said.

The forum leaders said that the situation in tribal areas had become somewhat similar to the recent history of Sindh under Gen Ziaul Haq when bandits used to kidnap people from weaker segments of society for ransom with the state being a helpless bystander.

Gen Musharraf, they charged, had destroyed all the institutions of the state, turned the elected assemblies into a laughing stock and annihilated the civil administration to introduce his defective local government system.

They said that Musharraf had derailed the whole political process in the country by banishing the leaders of main political parties and encouraging sycophants, opportunists and hangers-on in his own party, PML-Q.

Perhaps the only organised institution left in the country was army, but it, too, had become so ineffective and non-professional with lucrative civilian postings and privileges that 300 personnel chose to surrender rather than fight back, the army.

“The forum feels that this alarming and shameful outcome of the total anarchy and destruction of state institutions is because of the reason that Pakistan has a non-democratic and dictatorial military regime ruling the country for the past 8 years,” they said.