Pak alerts Sharif, political leaders about threats

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The Pakistan government on Friday alerted several political leaders, including former premier Nawaz Sharif and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, about threats to their lives and directed provincial authorities to step up security for them.

Caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan said that President Pervez Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, former federal ministers Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, Ejaz-ul-Haq, Amir Muqam and Sheikh Rashid Ahmed and former Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi faced threats to their lives from extremists.

The interior ministry directed the governments of the four provinces to step up security for these leaders, he said.

Security agencies were asked to provide foolproof security to Rehman, who heads a faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, in the wake of intelligence reports of threats to his life.

The government will provide security to these leaders but they will also have to take steps on their own to ensure that they do not expose themselves to risks, Khan told Geo News.

"They have to ensure their own security and adjust their programmes," he said.

Sherpao and Muqam recently had narrow escapes during bids on their lives by suicide bombers.

Meanwhile, interior ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema has denied reports that authorities had barred slain former premier Benazir Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari and her security advisor Rehman Malik from going abroad so that they could be available for questioning during the probe into her assassination.