The Hindu : Front Page : Benazir stopped from attending rally

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 10, 2007
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Benazir stopped from attending rally

Nirupama Subramanian

Detention order revoked later; Minister escapes blast

LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto was confined to her home — some reports said she had been placed under house arrest — hours before she was to lead a rally of her supporters at Rawalpindi’s historic Liaquat Bagh on Friday. Late in the night, AFP said the government withdrew a house arrest order on her, quoting a senior Interior Ministry official.

Police baton-charged and teargassed PPP supporters and arrested dozens of them as they tried to break through a heavy security cordon around Rawalpindi.

A PTI report said Political Affairs Minister Amir Muqam, a close associate of President Pervez Musharraf, escaped a suicide bomb attack at his home in Peshawar. Four persons were killed and five injured in the attack.

According to the PPP, about 5,000 of its supporters have been arrested in the last three days, but the government said the number was only about 1,000.

The rally was planned before Gen. Musharraf imposed emergency, but Ms. Bhutto warned earlier this week that it would be an expression of mass defiance against the November 3 clampdown.

Reporters who witnessed Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto’s attempts to leave Zardari House, her home in Islamabad, said hundreds of policemen had cordoned it off.

In a battle of nerves that lasted about five hours, Ms. Bhutto managed to cross the first barricade, but was forced to turn back when an armoured personnel carrier blocked her way.

Two dozen PPP parliamentarians who were present were detained by police and later released.

The government said it could not allow the rally because of security threats and for Ms. Bhutto’s own safety, citing intelligence reports about the presence of several suicide bombers. A suicide bombing in Rawalpindi late last month bolstered the government’s position.

But the PPP described the restrictions on Ms. Bhutto as “illegal” and said no warrants had been served on her.

“The government has not served any arrest warrants or any detention orders on her. So this is not a house arrest. We condemn this as illegal, unconstitutional and unwarranted. They have done this because they could not bear to see a PPP rally in Rawalpindi,” PPP leader Farhatullah Babar said.

Addressing reporters on the other side of the barricades, Ms. Bhutto said the government’s response to the planned rally showed that the regime was “paralysed.”

The struggle for restoration of the Constitution will continue and the barricades erected in the path of the people will be swept aside with the power of the people,” she said.

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