By Saleem Shahid

QUETTA, March 12: The district election commissioner for Quetta was gunned down here on Tuesday.

The outlawed Baloch Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for the killing.

By Amir Wasim

ISLAMABAD, March 12: Senators belonging to the Pakistan People’s Party on Tuesday questioned impartiality of the Election Commission of Pakistan and accused it of overstepping its constitutional mandate.

In hard-hitting speeches in the Senate, they alleged that like the Supreme Court, the ECP had started making decisions under pressure from media in violation of laws.

By Kalbe Ali

ISLAMABAD, March 12: In meetings held on the sidelines of the groundbreaking ceremony of Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, Qatar offered to sell two million tons of liquefied natural gas to Pakistan annually at reduced rates and the offer letter has been received by the Ministry of Petroleum.

“Based on this offer letter we are forwarding a summary to the cabinet meeting tomorrow for consent,” Dr Asim Hussain, Adviser to the PM on Petroleum, said here on Tuesday.

By Nasir Jamal

LAHORE: The cover of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s manifesto for the forthcoming election depicts a clean, green, economically strong and technologically advanced country.

Five years ago, as the PML-N leaders returned to rediscover the country they had been exiled from, they set simple, uncomplicated objectives. At the time the economy was in a much better shape than it is now, in spite of escalating global oil markets and the beginning of the economic slowdown and financial crisis in the United States and Europe.

By Raja Asghar

ISLAMABAD, March 12: With its time ticking by, the National Assembly moved with lightning speed on Tuesday to strike off a perceived Musharraf-era ‘mischief’ from an electoral law and exempt politicians from personally delivering their nomination papers to returning officers.

While only four days were left of its five-year term, and possibly only a day or two of its present session, the house also did a quick work of two pending private bills — one to prohibit corporal punishment in schools and care institutions and the other to promote reproductive healthcare rights of men and women — which were passed unanimously.

By Our Staff Correspondent

QUETTA, March 12: The governor of Balochistan on Tuesday issued an ordinance under which primary and secondary school education has been declared compulsory and free.

The ordinance will be implemented with immediate effect, according to a press release.

QUETTA, March 12: Two bullet-riddled bodies were found in Aab-i-Gum area of Bolan district and two men were shot dead in Quetta and Khuzdar on Tuesday.

Levies Force personnel took the bodies to the Mach Civil Hospital after local people informed the administration about the bodies in their area.