By-elections for local bodies (LBs) in Punjab are scheduled to take place on July 17, 2022, and the former interior minister Sheikh Rasheed on Monday warned of “anarchy” if incidents like the theft of ballot boxes and the kidnapping of presiding officers (POs) from those elections were repeated. Talking to the media at F-8 Kutchery in Islamabad, he said democracy would be harmed and the country’s economy would suffer if such incidents recurred during the by-polls. “Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) must have realized yesterday that it had made a mistake by joining the coalition government,” he said, adding, “Same must have been the case with the Awami National Party (ANP).” Rasheed claimed that the violence and murders that were seen in Sindh yesterday were unadulterated. Sheikh Rasheed, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Shehryar Afridi, and Khurram Nawaz had previously applied for bail before arrest in the case of property damage sustained during the PTI long march in lieu of Rs5,000 bonds each.