Thaindian News

Islamabad, Oct 30 (IANS) 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.