“The exact date of the elections will be in accordance to the Supreme Court judgment in the Syed Zafar Ali Shah case,’’ Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Irshad Hasan Khan was quoted as saying by The Dawn.

Mr Khan said under the judgment, President Pervez Musharraf had been directed to “appoint a date, not later than 90 days before the expiry of the aforesaid period of three years, for holding of a general election to the National Assembly, and the provincial assemblies and the senate of Pakistan’’.

The CEC said in terms of the Supreme Court judgment, the President was bound to announce the election date on July 11, 2002.

He said the validity of the present regime was “inter linked and intertwined” with the holding of elections before October 11, 2002.

Asked when the election schedule would be announced, the CEC said the Election Commission would do so as soon as the President announced the date on which the elections were to be held, as required under the SC judgment.

When asked about a general perception that elections would be postponed, the CEC said the perception was based on erroneous assumptions.

The CEC said it had not finalised any code of conduct for the general elections and only invited suggestions from political parties about the code.

“It is unbelievable that such an important fundamental issue would be finalised unilaterally by the commission... I firmly believe in effective and meaningful consultation on the matters of public importance with the political parties,” he said.

Mr Khan said the Election Commission in its meeting on July 4, had only decided to invite suggestions from the political parties by August 5.

“Whether to retain the provisions of the Code of Conduct for the general elections, 1997, in its present form or any of its provisions be modified, amended, deleted or some new provisions be added in the code of conduct for the coming elections have not been decided,’’ he added. UNI

The Prosecutor General of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Raja Muhammad Bashir said yesterday that Zardari, imprisoned for the past six years, was till date eligible to contest the general elections.

“No verdict in any of the references against him (Zardari) has so far been announced, so he is eligible to contest elections,” Bashir was quoted as saying by the official APP news agency.

Bashir’s remarks followed the government’s recently proposed constitutional amendments, which virtually barred Bhutto and deposed premier Nawaz Sharif from contesting the elections as both had been convicted in different cases.

Asked whether the new rules applied to Sharif, who had been sent on exile, Bashir said, “Nawaz Sharif has not been pardoned, rather his imprisonment has been condoned, but the verdict announced earlier continues to be intact,” which barred him from contesting the elections.

Bashir also filed a supplementary reference containing more evidence against Zardari before an accountability court at Attock. The case was related to accumulation of assets more than his known sources of income.

The new evidence against Zardari contained over 18,000 pages, with 82 volumes.

Bashir said the government had filed supplementary reference against Zardari on the basis of some material evidence received from the UK. Earlier, the government had claimed to have received 18,000 pages of additional evidence against Zardari from the UK last year.

Bashir claimed that Zardari had planned to purchase prime land in the UK through a network of offshore companies, for which he had hired the services of a British solicitor.

He said this evidence could also be used in other references pending against the couple.

Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) here said it amounted to the government following carrot and stick policy.

Party sources said the new evidence against Zardari came after six years of his imprisonment and that too before the elections. This was an attempt by the government to force the party to toe its line, they said. However, the Zardari option still left scope for the PPP to contest under his leadership.

The PPP had elected Bhutto chairperson for life. The party would be disqualified from contesting if she was not replaced. PTI 

The police raided a poultry farm in southwestern Baluchistan province and arrested one of the alleged rapists, Abdul Khaliq, said Col Farman Ali, a senior police officer. The farm was owned by a friend of Khaliq, he said.

Three other suspects were evading arrest, Colonel Ali said. The Police said yesterday they believed the suspects had fled Meerwala village, where the rape occurred.

The four men allegedly carried out the rape on June 22 after a tribal council ordered that the teenaged girl be gangraped because her 11-year-old brother was seen with a woman, who was not related to him — a crime punishable by death in some remote and deeply conservative regions of Pakistan.

Earlier today, Pakistan’s Supreme Court criticised the police for failing to arrest the men immediately after the rape, The victim’s family said the suspects were well known.

The court ordered the policemen involved in the investigation to return to court on July 11 to report on its progress, court officials said.

The court accused the police, which appeared today, of negligence for failing to immediately arrest the culprits.

Chief Justice Sheikh Riaz Ahmed expressed disbelief at the police claim that it had no information about the incident till June 30, the Daily Times reported.

Punjab police Inspector-General Asif Hayat submitted before the court that the police had arrested eight members of the council and was making efforts to arrest the men who had raped the girl.

MUZAFFARGARH: Gang-rapes are rife in the remote Pakistani district where a teenager was gangraped on the orders of a tribal council, an inquiry heard on Saturday.

Police records, which were presented to a provincial government inquiry into the June 22 rape-by-decree case, documented the rape of 22 women by 53 men in Muzaffargarh district in June alone.

Fourteen of the women, including the teenager whose case has left human rights groups here aghast, were gangraped, the records showed.

District police superintendent Farman Ali Chaudhry said 45 of the alleged rapists had been arrested.

Two of the raped women are now dead. One was killed probably because she was able to identify her rapists, the police said. Another rape victim committed suicide on July 2 because the police failed to take action against the culprits, the records said. Agencies

Zahid Shah, 40, was dragged out of his home on Friday in the presence of his wife and brother, and beaten with iron rods and sticks near Chak Jhumra town of Punjab province, the police said.

When he fell unconscious, Shah was dragged to a village square where the local religious leader Maulvi Faqir Mohammad ordered the mob of villagers to stone him as he regained senses, according to a report in The Dawn.

The terror struck family of the victim begged for mercy and promised to banish him from the village, but the mullah stood his ground, residents said.

Shah sustained serious injuries and died on the spot, the police said.

The family burried the body in nearby Faisalabad without complaining to the police fearing reprisals against them. However, the police in the area said they had begun an investigation.

The police which reached the spot four hours after the incident have not made any arrests so far.

“We have started a probe into the incident and we may order exhumation of the body to find out the cause of death,” police officer Mohammad Arif told AFP

A newspaper also quoted a Chak Jhumra police station official as saying that it was an “accident incident” and did not fall under the purview of cognisable offence.

The man, who was mentally ill, had claimed to be the “last prophet of Islam”.

Shah had earlier been jailed for blasphemy in 1994, but freed three years later on the ground that he was mentally ill.Last week, he returned to his village and had an altercation with the residents during which he openly used blasphemous remarks against Prophet Mohammad. A village tribal council immediately banished him.

Shah then left the village and returned on Thursday following which the residents complained to the mullah who issued the order to kill him over a mosque loudspeaker. PTI

Travellers on board El Al flight 106 from Los Angeles via Toronto recalled the dramatic moment the gunman opened fire at the airline’s counter, killing two persons, in what Israel maintained was a “terrorist attack”.

The FBI, which had named the assailant as Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, 41, an Egyptian native and US resident since 1992, said it did not want to jump to conclusions about Thursday’s shooting.

Meanwhile, in southern Gaza today, Palestinian hospital officials said Israeli soldiers killed a woman, Randa al-Hindi, and her two-year-old daughter Nur as they drove near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim from Khan Younis. They also said a Palestinian man in his 40s was shot dead while walking in Khan Younis late yesterday.

Elsewhere, a political source in Jerusalem said Omar Suleiman, head of Egypt’s intelligence agency, and Osama el-Baz, adviser to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would arrive tomorrow for talks in Israel and with Palestinian Authority officials. The source said the envoys wanted to increase Egypt’s role in implementing Palestinian reforms and had a part in picking a new Palestinian leader if Yasser Arafat quit.

Tensions ran high in Gaza today, a day after thousands of Palestinians vowed to avenge the death of Jehad al-A’marin, 45, a leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and a second militant in a car bomb.

Some 900 people from various Palestinian factions marched in Gaza City to demand the release of several leaders whom Israel was holding for what it said was their role in planning attacks. Reuters