Wheels of official patronage in motion

Published December 26, 2007

SAHIWAL, Dec 25: Several former federal and provincial ministers and parliamentary secretaries are still using the government vehicles for electioneering, complaints of this nature are pouring in.

The government has not bothered to withdraw these vehicles and the influential MNAs and MPAs are using these with changed number plates to campaign for the Q league.

In a jointly filed complaint to the chief election commissioner, PPP Sahiwal’s candidates Mehr Ghulam Farid Katchia (NA-161), Amjad Husain Bokhari (PP-222) and Chaudhry Hafeez Akhtar (PP-223) alleged that the caretaker governments had failed to check the misuse of the official vehicles.

They said even the nazims and naib nazims were also using the government vehicles to seek votes for their favourites. They were using the vehicles by affixing new number plates to conceal the fraud, alleged the complainants who warned that the PPP workers would stop such malpractice by themselves if the government failed to act immediately.

ROBBERY: Highwaymen plundered cash and mobile phone sets worth hundreds of thousands of rupees from Punjab University students near a roadside hotel late Monday night. Reports said a group of Punjab University students was returning from Harappa after an excursion and as the bus stopped at an eatery, armed men snatched Rs120,000 in cash and 13 cell phone sets and fled. They also took away cash from the hotel owner and employees. Yousafwala police registered a case under section 392 of PPC.

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