LAHORE, Jan 2: Governor Salmaan Taseer has asked 19 district nazims to immediately prove with specific instances their allegations that the PML-N government is adopting illegal and unconstitutional measures against them.

The nazims had on Dec 25 sent a letter to the governor to seek his protection against what they had maintained illegal and unconstitutional steps being taken by the provincial government against them and the local government system.

The governor had a few days ago referred the letter to the chief secretary asking him to furnish a reply within a week.

The petitioners, who had also spoken at a news conference the same day, had challenged the chief minister to face them at the Lahore Press Club on Jan 15 to prove his government’s allegations that the district governments had misappropriated billions of rupees.

Governor’s House officials informed Dawn on Friday that the nazims’ allegations were of generalised nature. Now they had been asked to substantiate their allegations against the provincial government with specific instances and facts.

According to the letter sent to nazims by the Governor’s House, the governor wanted them to point out and immediately furnish specific instances and occurrences of violation of the Constitution, Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2001 or any other law, rules, or any particular acts of harassment by the Punjab government.

The requisite information and documents must be forwarded at an early date for orders of the governor, the letter said.

The nazims included Maj Tahir Sadiq (Attock), Mubashar Bhatti (Hafizabad), Chaudhry Tariq Basheer Cheema (Bahawalpur), Rana Zahid Tauseef (Faisalabad), Ahmad Yar Heraj (Khanewal), Raja Javaid Akhlas (Rawalpindi), Chaudhry Shafaat Husain (Gujrat) and Sardar Ghulam Abbas (Chakwal).