LAHORE, Aug 20: The PPP on Friday questioned the fairness of the by-election on NA-59 (Attock), where the ARD candidate lost to Shaukat Aziz by a big margin, but said it would not challenge the results as no justice could be expected from the relevant quarters.

Party's federal council secretary-general Khalid Kharal said at a news conference that there was no use calling for fresh election on the seat as long as the incumbent chief election commissioner was in office.

Mr Kharal said that the murder of four PPP people in Qutbal village only a couple of days before the polling day had terrified voters, who preferred to stay home on the day of election. The FIR, though registered, was sealed without any legal justification, he complained.

The by-election was held in an atmosphere where the electorate felt terrorized and could neither have been fair nor free, the PPP leader argued, adding that it was the worst kind of manipulation.

Mr Kharal alleged that a number of ghost polling stations were set up in the constituency. Referring to assertions that the PPP did not have polling agents in many places, he said party representatives could not be appointed at 'non-existent' polling stations.

According to him, electoral rolls of the constituency provided to the PPP were different from those made available to the ruling party staff. Also, he alleged, the PPP camps were removed from many places and the police refused to entertain any complaint in this regard.

All this made the by-election a farce, he said. Haji Azizur Rehman Chan said the Supreme Court should take notice of the situation and declare the by-poll invalid.

Asked how could the PPP be expected to resist manipulative methods in the general election when it had not been able to prevent the alleged rigging in a single constituency, Mr Kharal said free and fair elections could not be expected when opposition supporters were killed at the hands of the ruling party people. Tahir Khaleeq was also present at the news conference.