Islamabad, Feb. 26 : Six people were injured when a massive fire engulfed the Marriot Hotel here on Thursday.

Authorities were not sure about the cause of the fire, but sources said an electric short circuit may have caused the fire, The News reports.

Eyewitnesses said that explosions were heard before the fire broke out in the hotel.

Massive flames and thick smoke were seen billowing out from the hotel building.

Several firefighting teams are at the spot trying to cut the blaze down.

Islamabad, Feb. 26 : Pakistan's Supreme Court used verdicts of past cases to arrive at its ruling to disqualify the Sharif brothers from contesting elections.

Sharif's conviction in the Plane Hijacking Case and Helicopter Case were the primary reasons for his disqualification, The Nations reports.

Sharif was awarded life imprisonment after he was convicted for trying to hijack the aircraft of the then Army chief General Pervez Musharraf on October 12, 1999.

Islamabad - Fire engulfed the luxury Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Thursday, five months after at least 54 people were killed there in a suicide truck bombing that nearly destroyed it.

"The fire started on the first floor where renovation work was being carried out," Marriott spokesman Khawar Jamil told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Jamil said it was not immediately clear what caused the fire, but some media reports said it may have been triggered by a short circuit.

No one was seriously injured in the incident.

However, a rescue worker, Zameer Ahmad, said at least five people suffering from smoke inhalation were taken to the hospital. "The number might increase as rescue work progresses," he added.

Islamabad - Political tension was high in Pakistan on Thursday as thousands protested an overnight court ruling that put an election ban on the country's top opposition leaders, leading to the imposition of federal rule in the most populous province of Punjab.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday barred former prime minister and the country's most popular leader, Nawaz Sharif, from running for parliament and nullified last year's election of his brother, Shahbaz, to the Punjab Assembly, removing him from the seat of chief minister.

Islamabad  - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to approve a second tranche of 800 million dollars of its 7.6-billon- dollar program to save Pakistan from defaulting on external payments, a senior official said on Wednesday.

"The Executive Board of the IMF will approve the second tranche for Pakistan by the end of March 2009," Pakistan's Finance Secretary Waqar Masood told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa from Dubai, where the sides concluded the talks.

Islamabad, Feb. 25 : Drug trafficking in Pakistan may witness an upsurge as security forces are preoccupied with tackling terrorism in the country. This is what the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) of the country fears.

The Joint Director (intelligence) of Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF), Zegham Khan told a Senate Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis that it was difficult to curb drug trafficking due to a shortage of manpower.

He said that without the help of the Frontier Constabulary (FC) and the army, it was virtually impossible to tackle the menace.