950825

Mid-term polls only

solution to present

national crisis: PML (N)

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League (N) on Friday again demanded holding of mid-term polls in the country.

"Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto should recognise that her regime has failed to provide good governance, whose one major element is to provide protection to the citizens and foreigners residing in the country", PML (N) Secretary Information Mushahid Hussain said while addressing a pess conference.

He said the Prime Minister should know that this situation could not continue indefinitely, adding that her only chance to save the democratic system was to accept the PML's demand for mid-term polls so that the present crisis in the country was resolved through constitutional and democratic means.

Mushahid, who issued a fact-sheet 'Hatrick of lawlessness" in PPP regime also demanded Interior Minister Major General (Retd) Naseerullah Khan Babar to accept responsibility and tender resignation for demonstrating monumental incompetence and for failure to satisfactorily perform his duties as Interior Minister.

He said that President Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari must also take stock of the rapidly deteriorating law and order situation in the country since Pakistan under Ms Bhutto's government was fast sliding into lawlessness and anarchy.

He added if the situation was not reversed within next six months, Pakistan could well be on the way to become another Somalia or Lebanon.

He expressed serious concern over a negative image building up internationally against Pakistan and said, "it is a matter of shame for us that Pakistan has recently been declared as most corrupt and lawless state of the world."

"The entire country is burning and the lawlessness had engulfed almost all parts of Pakistan. But our Prime Minister is least bothered in this respect and undertaking joyrides abroad", Mushahid said.

He alleged that Bhutto had given up the task of governance of the country since her primary goal seemed to be loot and plunder of the country as well as foreign journeys with her 25th visit in 22 months at a time when Pakistan is burning.

He made General Babar a target again saying that he is supposedly responsible for law and order. But he is engaged in doing body counts in Karachi and playing the politics of corpses whether it was Karachi or in areas such as Bara.

He criticised the intelligence agenices for hounding and harassing the opposition and said that these agencies whose primary task is to heat up national security had lost sense of direction.

Referring to attack on BBC office on Thursday in Islamabad, Mushahid said, he personally visited the BBC office on Friday under instructions of the Leader of the Opposition Muhammad Nawaz Sharif to convey sorrow and solidarity over this incident.

He said that the occurrance of this incident in the Federal Capital clearly showed that the government's tall claim of maintaining law and order was a total shame if it could not even provide the minimum protection to the BBC office in Islamabad.

Expressing concern over threats to the working journalists, he said that within the last 24 hours, Pakistan under the PPP regime had witnessed a unique "hatrick of lawlessness".

He also condemned the incident of firing on board PIA aircraft, attack on a legislator and killing of two persons and said this was for the first time in the aviation history that such an incident took place in the mid air.

He said that lawlessness in the aircraft, in offices of foreign news organisations in Islamabad and newspapers in Karachi are the incidents which never occurred.-PPI