On the list were family members of deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The list published in national newspapers comes two days ahead of a deadline set for Tuesday by the new Pakistani military chief to repay their outstanding debts to the country's banks.

It is estimated that bad debts total Rs 211 billion, most of which is owed by the published names. General Pervez Musharraf, who overthrew Sharif on October 12, has said his top priority is to recover unpaid loans, pursue the corrupt and recoup illicit wealth. Then he says he will set about cleaning up Pakistan's deeply corrupt political system before returning the nation of 140 million people to democracy.

"The deadline is to usher the start of the accountability process," Musharraf told the Associated Press in an interview on Friday. Among those identified as defaulters are Sharif's family-owned Ittefaq Foundries,which owes Rs 1,065 million. His brother Shahbaz Sharif owes Rs 2,146 million.The younger Sharif served as the Chief Minister of Punjab province during his brother's abbreviated term in power. He is currently in Army custody.

Meanwhile, the Ittefaq group has alleged discriminatory treatment by public sector banks and demanded a level playing field for repayment of the money.In a letter to the banks and other financial institutions, the Ittefaq group claimed reliefs were being accorded to other defaulters by banks while the same was denied to them.

The group alleged banks have not only refused to accept part payments of the defaulted amount but also arbitrarily "inflated" the dues from Rs 200 million to Rs 332 million.

The group maintained that since some of the cases are pending in courts, the company cannot be treated as a defaulter before the final outcome of the litigation process. The company has also forwarded copies of the letter to Gen Musharraf and Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz.

Gen Musharraf,during his address to the nation on October 17, had given a one-month deadline to all the alleged defaulters to pay back their dues to the banks and warned after the expiry of the period, "law would take its course".

Sharif had offered to hand over some of his industrial units to the public sector banks for auction and recovering the loans soon after the nuclear blasts in May 1998 but it was later found that those factories were shorn of assets and could barely recover a portion of the bad loans.

Meanwhile, military authorities have also banned foreign travel by all defaulters and provided a list of top 50 persons owing money to banks to the immigration authorities to prevent any escape by any of them.