Ordered the arrest of the Pakistani prime minister for corruption case

Pakistan's Supreme Court today ordered the arrest of the prime minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf, in relation to a corruption caseregistered at the stage where it was energy minister, sources with the court. Cited by local media, the sources said that the arrest warrant also affects other 15 people , who must be brought to the Supreme Court within 24 hours. The current prime minister was responsible for energy and water between early 2008 and 2011, during which he blamed irregularities in the failure of an initiative to reduce energy shortages by renting private power plants. The project, involving foreign private companies, cost billions of dollars of public funds but hardly helped alleviate electricity shortages suffering endemic Asian country. Ashraf came to be named by local media as "rents Rajah", and the shadow of the open trial planned in June on his appointment as replacement forYusuf Raza Gilani , former Prime Minister. Gilani was disbarred by the Supreme Court after being convicted of contempt in another corruption case, which in this case meant the country's president, Asif Ali Zardari. The news of the arrest warrant of the prime minister dropped a political bombshell in Islamabad, whose center is taken by thousands of supporters of reformist cleric Tahirul Qadri , who in a speech today lashed out against political corruption in Pakistan.