LARKANA, May 1: The president, PPP, Sindh chapter, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro advised President Pervez Musharraf to better hand over powers to the chief justice of Pakistan for he had no justification to remain in power in the wake of the highly-rigged referendum results.

Talking to this correspondent on Wednesday, he said that the voters ratio in the general election was 35 per cent but in this “unilateral referendum” it was 70 per cent, which was unbelievable.

Mr Khuhro, while saluting the people of Pakistan, said that the democracy-loving people had proved that they had never condoned dictatorship.

He said that the mere 3 per cent polled votes had opened the tall claims of the government, and added that it had unveiled the credibility of the government both in Pakistan as well as abroad.

He alleged that the results were obtained by pressurizing the election commission waving off the condition of national identity card and forcing government employees to essentially vote in favour of the referendum.

He said a president who avoided contesting amounted to nothing.

Mr Khuhro said that even the friends of President Pervez Musharraf who obtained Rs50,000 for voting had deceived him.

He said the present exercise had not only hit at the credibility of Pakistan but also at the credibility of President Musharraf as the foreign media had closely watched the referendum.

PML(QA): Masood Ahmed Khuhro, a leader of the PML(Q), in a press statement on Wednesday thanked the people of Larkana for profusely participating in the referendum by rejecting the boycott call of Ms Benazir Bhutto.

He said the “overwhelming majority” in the referendum pointed out towards the clear unpopularity of the PPP.

REFERENDUM: In Larkana District people had polled 97 per cent votes in favour of the referendum.

An election commission source on Wednesday told this correspondent that a total of 618,482 votes had been polled. He said that the number of votes polled in favour was 604,726, which came to 97 per cent.

MAN COMMITS SUICIDE: A man, Mehar Ali Lanjawani, committed suicide by taking insecticide in the Behram village on Wednesday.

The reason as to why Mr Lanjawani committed suicide could not be ascertained.

PROMOTIONS DELAYED: The Sindh government has been delaying notification of the promotion of 18 inspectors of the prosecution wing of Sindh police, it was learnt here on Monday.

Sources said that out of 32 senior prosecution inspectors of Sindh police, only 18 were cleared for promotion to the rank of DSP about two months ago.

According to sources, the promoted group of the inspectors is still waiting for the notification of their promotion from their departments; while two of them, who were working in Hyderabad and Jacobabad, have been retired in the meantime and some others are also at the verge of retirement.

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