By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad : The opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has decided to go ahead with its planned protest march from Lahore to Islamabad Wednesday although party chief Benazir Bhutto is under house arrest, party leader Shah Mahmmod Qureshi said.
“We demand that the government release Bhutto. Otherwise the people cannot be stopped from securing her release,” he told IANS.
Bhutto was put under house arrest in the early hours of Tuesday to prevent her from leading the protest march.
Police said the Punjab government has issued an order to detain Bhutto for a week in Lahore.
Before being taken into custody, Bhutto said that she had finally broken off all negotiations with President Pervez Musharraf in protest against his imposition of emergency rule.
Bhutto, who came back to the country on Oct 18 after eight years of self-imposed exile, said she couldn’t talk to a person who has imposed emergency on the country and suspended the constitution.
She has demanded the immediate reinstatement of the Supreme Court judges who were deposed on Nov 3 following the imposition of emergency.
Bhutto is being kept under house arrest at PPP senator Latif Khosa’s residence, which has been declared a sub jail by the police. She has been staying there since Sunday.
Reports said police deployment was being increased around Khosa’s house and the PPP chairperson would stay there till further orders.
Meanwhile, the Punjab Police launched a massive crackdown on PPP office-bearers and activists late Monday night and rounded up hundreds of them.
PPP leader Zafar Masood Bhatti said that more than 3,000 people have been arrested. Talking to IANS over the phone from an unknown place, he said that some of the party leaders and workers have managed to go underground.
“We will definitely start the long march tomorrow,” he said Tuesday.
Another PPP leader foresaw “pitched battles (with the police) everywhere in the city if the people were stopped from participating in the march”.
Meanwhile, the Commonwealth has given a 10-day deadline to Musharraf to restore the country’s constitution and lift other emergency measures or face suspension from the 53-nation group.
The ultimatum came after emergency talks of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) in London to decide how to respond to the emergency in Pakistan.
Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon said that if Musharraf fails to meet its demands by the eve of a Nov 23-25 Commonwealth summit in Uganda, Pakistan will be suspended as a member.