HYDERABAD: The Latifabad’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) general secretary Mushtaq Kalhoro has been abducted by men in civvies, who appeared as Rangers personnel, from railway crossing in Kalhora Colony. The Hyderabad district’s PPP general secretary Ali Ahmed Sahto addressed the media at a local press club. Reportedly, he was accompanied by Lal Bux Kalhoro, father of Mushtaq Kalhoro, and Ahsan Abro, the district information secretary. Lal Bux, the head of Peoples’ Labour Bureau Sindh, said that the PPP’s activists were being harassed by the law enforcement agencies for pressurising them to change their loyalties. “A few days back, a senior PPP worker Papoo Gulani was kidnapped by ‘secret’ agencies, who abandoned PPP and joined Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) upon his return,” he said adding that PPP’s office in Latifabad has been closed. He further raised a question on transparent, free and fair elections, and alleged that agencies were forcing PPP’s workers to join PSP. “If the caretaker government supports any political party while sidelining others, then it would be better to directly select them for forming government without elections rather than conducting elections with a cost of billions of rupees,” he said. Terming such coercive measures as ‘a pre-poll rigging’, he appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP), the returning officers (ROs), Provincial Election Commission (PEC), and district returning officers (DROs) for ensuring an equal opportunity of electioneering for all political candidates including PPP’s candidates. Published in Daily Times, July 19th 2018.