Islamabad(IANS) : The Pakistan government has decided to shift the deposed chief judge, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, out of Islamabad in two to three days in a bid to puncture anti-government protests by lawyers.
“The decision has been taken as his occasional press statements boost the morale of lawyers” in their fight against emergency rule, the Dawn newspaper reported Saturday.
Quoting unnamed sources, it said: “Chaudhry would be shifted to the north-western city of Quetta or Murree in Rawalpindi because his presence (in Islamabad) is a constant headache for the administration. He was likely to be shifted in two-three days.”
The main reason behind the government move was his last one-minute address to the lawyers on telephone from his besieged house Tuesday.
He had called upon Pakistanis to launch a struggle for the restoration of the constitution.
Before his mobile telephone was jammed, Chaudhry said the time for sacrifices had come, hoping that the day would arrive when there would be supremacy of the constitution without any dictatorship.
The sources told the newspaper the sacked chief justice, who is under house arrest, was informed Friday that he would be shifted even if he resisted the move.