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Pak sends envoy to hold talks with Muhajir leader

Pakistan's military government, headed by General Pervez Musharraf, has sent a high-ranking army officer to London to hold talks with self-exiled Muhajir leader Altaf Hussain.

Lahore-based Urdu daily Khabrain, which had provided the news, did not name the officer but said that the move was in keeping with General Musharraf's promise to rid the sense of alienation among smaller provinces, particularly Sindh.

The military officer's sojourn is part of the general's efforts to contact leaders in these provinces. Recently, he himself visited the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan for this purpose.

But Sindh, says the paper, is receiving General Musharraf's special attention. Hussain's Mutteheda Qaumi Movement had complained to the army against persecution and extra-judicial killings of its members by security forces during the tenure of previous governments.

According to Khabrain, the administration is considering the possibility of forming a government excluding deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharief and former premier Benazir Bhutto. The latter, too, is in London.

Hussain, who has been living in London since 1992, refuses to return to Pakistan because of threat to his life.

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