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If it's Saturday, it must be Karachi

Nirupama Subramanian

As the Pakistan Chief Justice's roadshow rolls on, there are fears of violence as the government and its allies plan rival rallies.

AFTER CHIEF Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary's triumphant show in Lahore, all eyes are on Karachi, his next destination. Mr. Chaudhary will visit Pakistan's biggest city on May 12 at the invitation of the Karachi Bar Association that says it will be an event to remember.

Nervous about what promises to be another massive show of strength by the Chief Justice, the government has called its own rally in the capital. President Pervez Musharraf will address it.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a coalition partner of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Q), which is also the ruling party in Sindh, has its own plans for a massive rally in Karachi on the same day.

Secretary-general of the Karachi Bar Association Naeem Qureshi said lawyers from the entire Sindh province were preparing to accord the ousted Chief Justice a reception comparable to Lahore. "Sindh is known for its 300-year-old tradition of hospitality, and inshallah, we will welcome the Chief Justice in keeping with this tradition," he said.

The Karachi Bar boasts 9,200 members. And, lawyers affiliated to every bar association in the province would be present to receive Mr. Chaudhary at the Karachi airport, said Mr. Qureshi. An estimated 17,000 lawyers were planning to show up, he said. Political parties and civil society activists are expected to lend their weight to the reception.

The Chief Justice is to address the Karachi Bar, the High Court Bar Association as well as a smaller Bar on the way from the airport to the city. He will also visit Mazhar-e-Quaid-e-Azam to pay his respects at the mausoleum of Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The entire programme would last 10 to 12 hours, Mr. Qureshi said.

This will be Chief Justice Chaudhary's second trip to Sindh after his ouster. He went to the Hyderabad and Sukkur Bars in mid-April, in the first of his road shows to garner public support against his removal. He later went to the Peshawar Bar. After the mammoth pro-Chief Justice rally in Lahore, Bar associations all over the country are vying with each other to invite him.

But there are fears that his visit to Karachi could be marred by violence as the MQM, a government ally, has announced plans for a rival rally in the city on the same day.

Karachi is the stronghold of the MQM, an aggressive force feared widely for its strong-arm tactics. Last week, as the Chief Justice powered across Punjab province in a motorcade from Islamabad to Lahore, cable operators in Sindh province pulled three private news networks giving live coverage of the event, reportedly on the orders of the MQM.

Its leader, the London-based Altaf Hussain, has said every worker of the party would work to ensure that Opposition plans to topple the government were defeated. Addressing party workers by telephone from London, Mr. Hussain said the MQM would "foil the conspiracies of unconstitutional and undemocratic forces" who were headed towards Karachi in the name of the "freedom of the judiciary."

The MQM rally on May 12 would be peaceful, he said. "People across Sindh will attend the rally to prove that Sindh and Karachi are the land of those who believe in democracy and freedom of judiciary and they turn down those political acrobats who are plotting in the name of judiciary," he was quoted as saying by Geo TV.

Lawyers are saying they will "negotiate" with the MQM to ensure peace. "The MQM has several intellectuals in its ranks. It is a democratic party, we can talk to them to see that no untoward incidents happen," said Mr. Qureshi.

After Mr. Chaudhary's mega roadshow across Punjab and in Lahore last weekend, the pressure is also on the ruling PML (Q) to demonstrate a support base in Punjab. Party chief Shujat Hussain has said over one million people will attend the rally in Islamabad on Saturday. His cousin and fellow `Q' leaguer, Punjab Chief Minister Pervez Elahi said a motorcade of party activists would leave Lahore for the capital early in the morning on May 12 for the rally.

With the competing rallies, Saturday promises to be a day of heavy political action in Pakistan.

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