ISLAMABAD, Aug 17: Leaders of the People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP) have held Attock District Nazim Maj (retired) Tahir Sadiq responsible for the killing of three party activists and called for his immediate arrest.

"The Attock district Nazim and all those involved in the murder should immediately be arrested otherwise the government will be responsible for the consequences," said PPP Secretary- General Raja Pervez Ashraf, MNAs Naheed Khan, Zamurad Khan and Babar Awan while speaking at a news conference at the party's central secretariat here on Tuesday.

Mr Ashraf said the district Nazim had several times publicly stated that he would "deal" with the PPP properly. Mr Ashraf said Malik Babar, one of the party activists killed in the attack, had informed the PPP Attock president, Sher Afzal, on telephone minutes before his death that he had fears that the police might kill him.

Soon after receiving the call, Mr Ashraf said, Sher Afzal contacted the SSP who assured Mr Afzal that the PPP workers would be protected fully and there was no such plan. He said after about 20 minutes, the PPP leaders received the news of the tragic incident.

The PPP secretary-general said the telephone call made by the deceased, who was also the president of the People's Youth Organization, Fatehjang, was a proof that the PPP activists had been murdered allegedly on the orders of the district Nazim.

"The killing of three innocent PPP workers is an example of naked state terrorism," Mr Ashraf said. He regretted that the relatives of the deceased activists were nominating the district Nazim in the FIR, but the police were not ready to file the case.

He said the family members of slain workers were told on Monday night that the FIR had been sealed. Mr Ashraf said the party believed that the FIR had not been registered yet.

He said the killings of Abdullah Murad Baloch, Munawwar Suharwardy, Pir Binyamin Rizvi, Sher Afzal's son and the three PPP activists had exposed the government's "worst political victimization".

Naheed Khan said the party would go to every platform to seek justice. She said there were other beneficiaries of the murder of PPP workers as well and, therefore, "we also nominate Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz, Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain in this case."