HYDERABAD, Feb 21: Two civil society organisations have said that massive rigging had taken place in Feb 18 elections in Karachi, Thatta, Tharparkar, Ghotki, Jacobabad, Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas and demanded that re-elections should be held in these areas.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club here on Thursday, Khairunnisa Ada Foundation secretary-general Rana Faizul Hassan and United Human Rights Commission Pakistan chairman Mohammad Rafique Sand and others said that 300 members of the two organisations had monitored polling throughout Sindh and detected massive rigging in the above districts.

They said that they had already submitted their findings to President Pervez Musharraf, caretaker prime minister, Election Commission and chief justice of Sindh High Court. They alleged that force was used in these districts to get desired results.

They claimed that where the turnout was less than 15 per cent, it shot up to 50 per cent within an hour. In Tharparkar district their monitoring team was not even allowed to enter into polling stations for ‘security reasons’.

The leaders of the two organisations said many people were not allowed to cast vote as their votes had already been cast. They said that at Chhachhro and other polling stations polling had come to an end at 1pm.

They said that Tharparkar was a very difficult terrain where people had to face a lot of difficulties in reaching the polling stations but surprisingly, huge turnout was shown there.

They said that if re-elections were held under the supervision of army or Rangers in Tharparkar and other controversial districts, many winners will lose elections.

They demanded of the National Accountability Bureau to order an inquiry against the Chaudhry brothers as to where from they had procured a huge amount of Rs75 million for TV advertisements and tens of millions of rupees for newspapers advertisements although they had not shown such a huge amount in their returns.

They called upon the future government to probe the privatisation of Steel Mills, Habib Bank and other government enterprises, allotment of lands to favourites in Karachi and other towns, commercialisation of amenity plots and waiver of huge loans.