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Islamabad:
Unidentified miscreants set ablaze offices of the opposition
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in different places of Sindh
province Saturday night, a day after PML-N leaders threatened
President Asif Ali Zardari to be ready to be hanged "upside down"
or "resign and return looted national wealth".
At least four miscreants set the PML-N office in Hyderabad on
fire, Dawn News reported. The watchman of the building said the
attackers also fired gunshots.
Posters and pictures of PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif were burnt in
different parts of the city, the PML-N Hyderabad general secretary
told Dawn News.
Nawabshah, Kindhkot, Jacobabad and Khairpur were among the other
cities where PML-N offices were set ablaze.
Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik Sunday directed the
authorities to come up with an initial report within three days,
Geo News reported.
Witnesses said heavily-armed arsonists, after setting ablaze the
PML-N office in Kashmore, fired hundreds of shots in the air.
The house of the brother of the PML-N district chief in Sukkur was
also attacked with a petrol bomb. However, no casualty was
reported.
Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Wasan has also ordered a judicial
inquiry into the incidents.
Malik, who belongs to the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), has
termed it a conspiracy to fuel anarchy in the country. "I suspect
a third party is behind all this," he told Geo News.
He said the culprits were bent on "setting fire to the peace" of
Pakistan as well as distorting the image of the PPP.
No one would be allowed to flout the law, Malik said.
He said PML-N offices across the country would be provided extra
security so as to ensure that such incidents do not recur.
Zardari was Friday threatened by the PML-N to be ready to be
hanged "upside down" or "resign and return looted national
wealth".
PML-N leaders addressed a gathering in Lahore, where Punjab Chief
Minister Shahbaz Sharif "took acerbity and fiery rhetoric to its
limits" in his denunciation of the president, the Dawn reported.
Sharif "laced his speech with all ingredients needed for firing up
a public meeting" -- accusations of sleaze, insults, poetry and
talk of the gallows.
"Resign and return looted national wealth. Otherwise, my comrades
will hang you (Zardari) upside down," the chief minister said.
He called Zardari an "Ali Baba" and his colleagues "forty
thieves", referring to the story in the "Arabian Nights" where the
robbers looted people and hid their wealth in a secret cave
location.
A senior PML-N leader and MP, Khawaja Saad Rafique, said Zardari
was a "wolf in sheep's clothing" and his government was a "civil
dictatorship", Geo News reported.
He said Zardari and his "cronies" have "taken hostage" the ruling
PPP.
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