``According to official sources, Nawaz has been charged with money laundering to the tune of $40 million, tax evasion of over $60 million, forgery of $10 million and misuse of public funds and his office for personal benefit,'' the nationwide English-language daily, The Nation, said.

Pakistan's ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf released over 100 Islamic militants whom the Sharif government had arrested for protesting Pakistani withdrawal from Kargil in July.

According to Urdu daily Ausaf Islamabad, these Mujahideen (Islamic warriors) belong to Lashkar-e-Toiba, Harkat-ul Mujahideen and Tehrik-ul Mujahideen. The Sharif government had arrested them from Gujranwala, Muzaffargarh, Dera Ismail Khan, Sargodha, Karachi and other cities. The Nation reported that the FederalInvestigation Agency (FIA) had submitted a report to the Army rulers who ousted Sharif on October 12 as part of a vast crackdown on top-level corruption for which Pakistan has become notorious. The FIA declined to comment.

Sharif has been held in protective custody since the bloodless takeover brought the Army back into power pledging to clean up the country's institutions and return ``real democracy'' after interim rule by civilian/military bodies. The military has so far resisted western pressure to lay out a timetable for return to civilian rule or for when it would name a cabinet, saying it did not want to be rushed into the decisions.

British and Turkish newspapers have quoted Musharraf as saying a cabinet would be named in three or four days.

The United States and the European Union have called for a quick return to democracy, threatening strong action otherwise, including the possible blocking of loans from the International Monetary Fund. Diplomats said there was widespread popular support forMusharraf's clean-up campaign tinged with scepticism that a legal system which has signally failed to make the elite accountable so far might finally prove effective.

Every government since 1985 has taken power pledging to clean up graft and to get the rich and powerful to pay tax in a nation of 135 million where less than two percent of people pay any income tax at all.

The Urdu-language Jung daily, the country's largest circulation newspaper, wrote in one of its editorial: ``The people want that the accountability of the corrupt should be meaningful and impartial.''

Pakistani newspapers again carried large advertisements from banks urging the nation's elite to meet a November 16 Army deadline for repayment of bad debt worth more than $ four billion. ``Pay your loans before the hand of the law forces you to do so with a penalty. Settle your debt before time runs out,'' said one quarter-page insertion by the state-run Habib bank.