Sharif defies house arrest, appeals people to join protest

Defying an order placing him under house arrest, leader of Pakistan’s main opposition PML-N, Nawaz Sharif, today left his residence in Lahore to lead a ‘long march’ for restoration of sacked judges and asked the countrymen to join the anti-government protest.

Sharif’s younger brother and former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz, who was in Rawalpindi at a PML-N leader’s residence, gave a slip to police and went into hiding before he could be served order for his house arrest, PML-N spokesman Siddique-ul-Farooq said.

Earlier media reports had said that Shahbaz too was placed under house arrest.

As tensions mounted with hundreds of protesters clashing with police in Lahore, the two-time former premier Sharif, 59, drove from his Model Town home in a motorcade on the eve of a sit-in outside Parliament in Islamabad. However, reports said police had made arrangements to stop him a short distance away.

Earlier, emerging from his residence, Sharif urged people to defy restrictions and join the ‘long march’ organised by lawyers and opposition parties, which is set to culminate with the sit-in, to pressurise the ruling PPP to reinstate the judges deposed in 2007 by then President Pervez Musharraf.

“Brothers, do not be scared or worried. These obstacles are temporary. We must remove them and only then can we reach our destination,” he said.

On the penultimate day of the long march that was launched on March 12, a large police contingent fired tear gas shells and rubber bullets to disperse lawyers, civil society activists and workers of the PML-N, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf and Jamaat-e-Islami parties, who had gathered at GPO Chowk in Lahore to join the rally to Islamabad.

Both sides pelted stones at each other and police in riot gear beat protesters with batons and sticks. Several persons were injured in the clashes and some protesters were also arrested and bundled into police vans.

Earlier this morning, police arrested over 20 PML-N activists who had gathered at a camp set up outside Sharif’s residence at Model Town.

Police also put under house arrest several other senior PML-N leaders, including Senator Ishaq Dar, parliamentarian Saad Rafiq and Zulfikar Khosa, the chief of the party’s unit in Lahore. Dissident PPP leader Aitzaz Ahsan, a key player in the lawyers’ movement, too was placed under house arrest.

Sharif, in a brief address to cheering supporters, said the long march was necessary to end injustice, poverty, unemployment and other problems, hours after TV channels quoted official sources as saying that the former premier had been put under house arrest for three days.

Interior ministry chief Rehman Malik, however, claimed no orders had been issued for putting the Sharif brothers in house arrest.

Sharif accused the PPP-led government of making all possible efforts to stop the long march. “They put me under house arrest, which I don’t accept. Everything they are doing is unlawful. Their courts are unlawful and unconstitutional.” Reports said orders had also been issued for detention of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Tehrik-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan, both of whom are in hiding. The house of Khan, former cricketer-turned politician, in Islamabad was raided by dozens of policemen, who locked and sealed it. In Rawalpindi, police raided the high court premises and arrested over 100 lawyers who had gathered there to leave for Islamabad today. The policemen beat the lawyers and locked the main gate of the high court building. Police used freight containers to block key roads in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The key arterial Murree Road was also blocked and additional police pickets established on it. Helicopters hovered over the federal capital as army was deployed at important buildings. Police conducted raids on houses and offices of opposition parties and arrested activists and several leaders of the PML-N, Jamaat-e-Islami and Tehrik-e-Insaf party. Lawyers and opposition parties have said authorities have detained over 1,200 people since Tuesday in an effort to thwart the long march. Most the people were held under the Maintenance of Public Order law or were detained without charges.