Musharraf says troop to shoot anyone disrupting elections

PAKISTAN President Pervez Musharraf has said he has ordered troops to shoot anyone attempting to disrupt next month's elections.

The parliamentary elections were delayed six weeks until February 18 amid violent chaos that followed the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on December 27 in a gun and suicide bomb attack that the government blamed on extremists.

Musharraf said the polls would not be delayed again and expressed confidence they would be peaceful.

"I have said to the rangers and army shoot anyone who tries to do anything of this sort (disrupting the polls)," he said in a speech at the opening of a new bridge yesterday.

Agencies