Hundreds of lawyers and women demonstrated Monday as anger grew over the alleged molestation of the daughter of a veteran politician and friend of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, reports AFP.

Lawyers and women held separate rallies in Lahore, capital of Punjab province, to protest the incident described by newspapers as the gang rape of Farhana Hayat. 40. nicknamed Veena, reports reaching here said.

Meanwhile, a stream of sympathisers called at the home here of Veena s father, retired politician Sardar Shaukat Hayat.

Veena told police she was assaulted at her home in southern city of Karachi on November 27 by a group of armed men who. she said, had "molested and tortured" her for 12 hours.

Political parties, human rights groups and women's organizations plan more demonstration around the country to protest against the attack, which the victim claims was politically motivated.

She said her molesters had repeatedly asked questions about her links with Bhutto, Bhutto's husband Asif All Zardari and the couple's politi

Hayat 76, who retired from active politics in 1978 but is still respected as a colleague of Pakistan's late founding father Mohammad Alt Jinnah, told reporters he had given the government a four-day deadline to arrest the culprits responsible for the attack.

Otherwise, he said, his clan would adopt the "appropriate course", but he did not elaborate.

The veteran politician said President Ghulam Ishaq Khan had sent a reply to his letter, saying the Sind provincial government had been directed to probe the incident.

Hayat said he rejected the President's response because it “amounts to asking a criminal to sit in Judgement over his crime." He was referring to the President's son-in-law and a key figure in the Sind administration. Irfanullah Marwat. who he has blamed for the assault on his daughter.

Marwat. Advisor on Home Affairs to Sind Chief Minister Jam Sadiq All. has denied the allegations as "absurd, baseless and fabricated" and the provincial government has ordered a Judicial inquiry into the charges.

Newspapers for the second day Monday published numerous denunciations of the attack from politicians, lasers, hu-

man rights activists and social and cultural organizations.

"The nation is sad", read one-newspaper headline.

Opposition parties have blasted the President for his son-in-law's alleged repression on in Sind and have demanded his resignation.

The Veena affair follows a recent wave of arrests in Sind in what the provincial government said was a crackdown on terrorists. Bhutto has accused the government of throwing more than 2.000 of her supporters Into Jail-

Meanwhile Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered Tuesday a speedy probe by military ’ intelligence into the alleged molestation of a friend of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, officials said.

In his orders from Senegal, where he is attending the sixth Islamic summit. Sharif asked the inter-services Intelligence agency, the civilian intelligence bureau and the federal investigation agency to investigate the incident separately

The three agencies have been ordered to submit their reports to the government in "24 hours", officials said, as more demonstrations were held in the country Tuesday to denounce the alleged assault.