The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Bilawal leaves Pak, not to return before poll day Afzal Khan in Islamabad Pakistan People’s Party chief Bilawal Zardari Bhutto will not be available to the party to bolster its already sagging election prospects. Days ahead of the May 11 poll, the party finds itself without any central figures to lead its campaign. Bilawal has already left the country and would not be addressing any party rallies or meetings due to security threats to his life, party sources were quoted as saying by Dawn.com on Friday. Central party leader Taj Haider also confirmed that consensus had been reached in the party and that, in the wake of serious threats to Bilawal’s life, the party has advised him not to lead the election campaign in person. “We have already lost Benazir Bhutto and will not risk losing her son Bilawal. The threats to his life are very real,” he said. Haider did not say where Bilawal was right now. However, sources in the party said that he had left Pakistan earlier this week and would not be returning to the country before May 11, the election day. President Asif Zardari has been restrained by courts from political activity. Most senior party leaders are pre-occupied with campaigning in their respective constituencies to save their own seats. The threat of Taliban attack has further pushed them out of the mainstream national-level political activity. The field has been left open to PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, who has emerged as the frontrunner for the race to form the government, and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan who have been addressing huge election rallies, mostly in Punjab. Sharif addressed a gathering in Sindh’s Thatha area on Thursday. He spoke at another public meeting in Kot Addu in southern Punjab on Friday pledging to build Pakistan into a strong, prosperous country. Imran Khan, Sharif’s formidable challenger, continued with his frenzied spree of public meetings in the troubled Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa urging people to topple the traditional politicians and support him in building a new Pakistan. He vowed to defeat feudal lords and big contractors who, he claimed, were supporting Sharif, end the discriminatory education system, pull Pakistan out of America’s war on terror and the Pakistan army from its Balochistan operation. Imran said Asif Zardari and Sharif have delivered nothing except power outages, inflation, corruption and mismanagement.
	Bhutto murder case prosecutor shot dead He also represented govt in 26/11 Mumbai case Afzal Khan in Islamabad The main state prosecutor in the Benazir Bhutto assassination and 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack cases, Chaudhry Zulfiqar, was shot by unidentified assailants on Friday morning. Zulfiqar was gunned down while driving from Islamabad to Rawalpindi where an anti-terrorism court (ATC) was due to hear the Benazir murder case. Former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf (retd), who has also been implicated, was to be presented before the court for the Friday hearing. Due to the killing, the hearing of the Benazir Bhutto case was adjourned till May 14 while lawyers in Rawalpindi and Islamabad immediately went on strike in protest. Musharraf, who is currently detained at his farm house in Islamabad that has been declared a sub-jail, could not be produced in court. The police said that Chaudhry Zulfiqar was shot multiple times after gunmen intercepted his vehicle shortly after he left home in the capital. His bodyguard was wounded and a woman passer-by was also killed. "Chaudhry Zulfiqar was driving his car. He lost control and the car crushed a woman passer-by," a police officer said. The police said the gunmen fled on a motorbike. Zulfiqar had been pursuing the case for the past five years and authorities had tightened his security after he complained he was receiving threats. Zulfiqar was also the main government prosecutor who indicted seven alleged conspirators led by Lakhvi in the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 persons. The attacks were blamed on Pakistan's Islamist group Lashkar-e-Toiba.
	ANP candidate, son killed in Karachi Islamabad, May 3 An Awami National Party (ANP) leader contesting Pakistan's upcoming general election and his six-year-old son were gunned down outside a mosque in the southern port city of Karachi today, police and witnesses said. Sadiq Zaman Khattak, a candidate for the poll to a parliamentary seat in Karachi, and his son were attacked by unidentified gunmen as they were leaving a mosque in Bilal Colony after Friday prayers. The gunmen, who were riding a motorcycle, escaped after the attack. Officials said five persons were injured in the shooting. The Election Commission announced the postponement of polls in the constituency where Khattak was contesting. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. The shooting was the latest in a series of attacks targeting leaders and workers of the secular ANP, which has received threats from the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. Senior ANP leader Bashir Jan had a narrow escape in a recent bomb attack in Karachi that killed 11 people. Scores of ANP workers have been killed in attacks by the Taliban in the country's northwest. The party has curtailed its election campaign following the latest attacks. The Taliban has said it will target parties like the ANP, Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Pakistan People's Party, which were part of the last coalition at the centre, for their "secular policies" and for launching military operations against militants. ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan condemned the attack on Khattak and said the three liberal parties were being targeted. — PTI
	The ringside view Security of VIPs beefed up Islamabad: A terrorist organisation has planned to kidnap former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf (retd), interim Interior Minister Malik Mohammad Habib has stated. Talking to the media outside the Parliament House here, the minister said that personal security of all high-profile figures, including Musharraf, has been tightened. “The militants will not succeed in their nefarious designs,” he added. — TNS For fair poll, govt must ensure security: CEC Islamabad: Chief Election Commissioner Fakhruddin G Ebrahim has said the commission can guarantee free and fair elections but the government has to ensure security. Presiding over a meeting of the commission here on Thursday, Ebrahim said that maintaining law and order was not under the Election Commission’s control. Various political parties have come under terror attack after the announcement of the election date. — TNS
	Special to The Tribune Rise of the fourth force in UK’s political landscape Shyam Bhatia in London The UK is experiencing what could be the start of a political earthquake after a new and fourth political force in the shape of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) flexed its muscles at the polling booths. In one parliamentary byelection, South Shields, and a series of local county council elections, the UKIP took support away from all the major parties, averaging more than 20 per cent of the vote. This amounts to a remarkable showing for a party that was until recently relatively unknown, only to be dubbed by Prime Minister David Cameron as full of “clowns and fruitcakes.” Contrary to what the ruling Conservatives have tried to claim, the UKIP is not a cover for the racists of the British National Party (BNP) and has both Blacks and NRI Asians among some of its most enthusiastic supporters. The party’s often-expressed desire to withdraw the UK from Europe (saving £53 million a day), bring in a system of controlled, points system of immigration so that Bulgarians, Romanians and others from Eastern Europe do not have automatic right to settle in the UK and take advantage of its unemployment and other benefits allowances and abolish university tuition fees has struck a chord among ordinary voters. Most of all, the UKIP is seen as standing against the sort of cronyism and obsession with money that is associated with the major parties. The political rivalry of the two Milliband brothers, David and Ed, who both competed for the leadership of the Labour Party, was seen by many as an unhealthy single family domination of national politics, usually associated with the likes of the Banadaranaikes/Rajapaksas of Sri Lanka, the Marcos’ of the Philippines, the Bhuttos of Pakistan and the Gandhi/Nehrus in India. Former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair has not launched any members of his family into politics, although that cannot be ruled out in the future, but voters have been astonished by how much money (said to be £30 million) he has accumulated since leaving office. Like Labour, the Conservatives also have their share of cosy family relationships at the top of the political tree. They include London Mayor Boris Johnson and his brother Jo who has just been appointed as a Cabinet-rank adviser to the Prime Minister. Their presence at the top ranks of the party has been supplemented by the support of scores who may not be related by blood but share the same values acquired from attending similar, upper-class schools and universities. Shortly after emerging from zero and capturing 16 seats in the county of Lincolnshire, where it is now the second largest party ahead of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, UKIP’s leader Nigel Farage declared, “This wave of protest certainly isn’t short term - it is long lasting.” He told Sky News, “At the end of today, we are going to have a fair tally. This will send a shock wave, I think, through the establishment. “It's been a remarkable result for us. Numerically, we're the third (party) because the Lib Dems are trailing behind. “We have always done well in European elections...but people haven't seen us as being relevant to local elections or in some ways, general elections. “So for us, to be scoring 26 per cent of the vote on average is very significant indeed,” Nigel Farage said. Some Conservative leaders have privately admitted that the UKIP’s extraordinary showing in the local elections amounts to a ‘kick in the pants’ for the Conservatives and others.
	Boston bombers planned attack on US I-Day Washington, May 3 Chechen-born Boston bombers had planned to carry out a suicide attack on American Independence Day on July 4, but they decided to advance the D-day as their homemade pressure cooker bombs were ready earlier than expected. The crucial information was provided by the lone surviving suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, in his interrogation to the federal investigators, US media reports said today. Dzhokhar, who was arrested from a Boston neighbourhood on April 18, has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction. If convicted, he faces life imprisonment. His elder brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 29, was shot dead by the police on April 18, three days after the Boston Marathon blasts that killed three people and wounded over 200 others. Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar initially planned to carry out a suicide-bomb attack on July 4, a US law enforcement official was quoted as saying by the CNN. The unnamed official said Dzhokhar told investigators their bombs were ready earlier than they expected and they decided to move up the date. It is unclear which specific event would have been targeted but one of the biggest July Fourth celebrations in the country is held in Boston, it said. "They surveyed these police stations, multiple stations in Boston and one in Cambridge. They built the bombs so fast that they decided to move the whole plan up," an unnamed official was quoted as saying by Boston Globe. — PTI