International

Pak. Opposition's plan to hold rally thwarted

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD MARCH 23 . For the second year in a row, the Musharraf Government thwarted the attempt by a grouping of mainstream political parties to hold a rally in support of its demand for setting up an interim government and holding elections.

The Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD), an umbrella organisation of 15 parties, including the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), had given the call for the demonstration. The rally was to coincide with the `Pakistan Day'.

In a crackdown on the leaders and activists of the constituents of the ARD, police detained a number of them and prevented people from reaching the venue in Lahore.

The PPP chairperson and former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, has condemned the `brutal manner' in which the proposed public meeting of the ARD in Lahore was disrupted and hundreds of political workers arrested. It alleged that the regime, however, allowed a public meeting on the same day in Rawalpindi by a religious party.

The administration after warning the ARD leadership against holding the meeting, flooded the venue with water surrounding it with barbed wire and blocking all the entry points with armed police and security personnel.

Several hundred political workers, including Chaudhry Ahmad (PPP), the ARD president, Nawbazada Nasrullah Khan, Iqbal Jhagra and Tehmina Daultana were expelled from the district. Some PPP leaders, including the vice-chairman, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, were banned from travelling to Lahore from Karachi and elsewhere.

In a statement today, the former Prime Minister deplored that on the one hand the military regime permitted the religious party and its handpicked cronies in the Kings Party to hold public meetings and on the other, it was using brute force to deny to the democratic parties' workers their constitutional and legal rights to hold a peaceful meeting even on `Pakistan Day'.

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