CSS Forums - A Wrong Move at a Wrong Time.

[QUOTE=FAIRUFF;732675]PAT people violated section[B][U] 144 today[/U][/B], what else you want to hear?? A person calling army to intervene while sitting in a plane, violating international laws.[/QUOTE]

[COLOR="Indigo"][SIZE="3"][B]Lets go back into the annals of Dirty Politics of Pakistan.
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[B][U][COLOR="Purple"][SIZE="3"]Hundreds held in massive crackdown
Published Mar 12, 2009 12 am[/SIZE]
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[B]LAHORE Police rounded up more than 400 opposition activists across Punjab, 200 of them in the provincial capital, on Tuesday night and Wednesday in a bid to thwart lawyers` long march and sit-in in Islamabad. Police also raided houses and offices of lawyers in Lahore.

However, police failed to detain any top leader of Pakistan Muslim League-N, Jamaat-i-Islami and Tehrik-i-Insaaf.

Except for Mian Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and some others, most of the top opposition leaders went into hiding as the crackdown began.

Arrests were also made in Gujrat, Bahawalpur, Vehari, Khanewal, Toba Tek Singh, Okara, Sheikhupura, Mandi Bahauddin, Sialkot, Mianwali, Narowal, Kasur, Multan, Layyah, Gujranwala and Muzaffargarh.

All banners and posters of Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and other leaders displayed outside party offices and on roads and crossings in Lahore were removed by police and city district government employees.

Shahbaz Sharif`s spokesman Khwaja Imran Nazir told Dawn that the Islampura police had detained PML-N Punjab vice-president Mohammad Ilyas Khan from a wedding reception on Wednesday night.

The crackdown continued till late in the night.

Sources said the government had decided to place PML-N leaders Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif under house arrest by Friday.

A police official told Dawn that not more than 20 political workers had been arrested in Lahore. He said the federal government had asked police not to detain or place any MNA or MPA under house arrest.

Police raided offices and residences of legislators, leaders, office-bearers and workers of opposition parties, but most of them had gone underground. Prominent among the leaders whose houses were raided are PML-N MNAs Khwaja Saad Rafiq, Mian Marghoob, Naseer Ahmad Bhutta, Bilal Yaseen and Afzal Khokhar, JI provincial amir Liaquat Baloch, PTI chairman Imran Khan and PML-N MPAs Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman, Ajasam Sharif, Mian Noman and Mohsin Latif.

Opposition parties alleged that during the raids police personnel misbehaved with women and the elderly.

The crackdown was ordered at a meeting of police operations wing presided over by city police chief Haji Habibur Rahman on Tuesday night.

[U]The Punjab government has imposed Section 144 and directed all divisional SPs to constitute teams to arrest political workers mobilising gatherings.[/U]

PML-N Lahore president Mian Marghoob told Dawn that police had detained more than 200 party activists. He, however, said no office-bearer or leader of the party had been arrested.

JI city secretary information Rao Javed Iqbal said five party activists had been arrested. They are Mohammad Younas Ansari, Aamir Shahzad, Sultan Dogar, Umer Farooq and Zaki Baloch.

Tehrik-i-Insaaf Lahore secretary information Ishtiaq Ahmad said two party activists, Asif Mughal and Sadaat Butt, had been detained.

He said police had raided homes of 68 PTI leaders, office-bearers and activists in Lahore, including the Zaman Park residence of Imran Khan and homes of additional secretary-general Javed Iqbal, central secretary information Umer Sarfraz Cheema and provincial president Ahsan Rasheed. He claimed that a list of 225 PTI activists had been given to police.

PML-N`s provincial and Lahore secretariats in New Muslim Town were closed on Tuesday night. Amjad Farooqi, who works at the provincial secretariat, told Dawn that officials in civvies and uniform visited the office thrice.

Police sources said that police had received orders to detain 100 political activists and miscreants who could create law and order. Deputy Inspector General of Police (operations) Amjad Javed Saleemi said police would maintain law and order and would not allow anyone to disrupt peace.

Leaders of the legal fraternity and political parties said they were determined to stage the sit-in on March 16 for restoration of the judiciary to the pre-emergency position.

The Punjab home department said that over 300 people who were considered a threat to public peace had been detained in the province.

`[U][COLOR="Indigo"]The government has imposed Sec 144 to ban public rallies in view of the prevalent security situation. Terrorists can use big gatherings and rallies to carry out their designs and even target political leaders,` provincial home secretary Rao Iftikhar told a news conference. The detainees, however, did not include any lawyer, he added[/COLOR].[/U]

A PML-N leader told Dawn `We are gathering information about the exact number of our people detained so far, but I can say it with confidence that the number is far higher than claimed by the government.`

[U]Lahore High Court Bar Association`s former president Anwar Kamal said that lawyers had chalked out alternative plans to reach Islamabad for the sit-in. “We reject imposition of Sec 144 on our democratic and constitutional rights. The curbs on assembly and police crackdown cannot deter us from carrying out the peaceful march and holding sit-in. We will reach the Constitution Avenue at all costs,” he added.[/U]

Civil rights organisations have strongly criticised the arrests and curbs on gatherings.

[U]`There is no justification for the government`s undemocratic decision to impose Sec 144 and curbs on the right to assembly and unleash a campaign of arrests and harassment against lawyers, political workers and civil society activists. The enforcement of Sec 144 has compounded the already tense situation created by the imposition of governor`s rule in Punjab,` said a statement issued by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
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[COLOR="Indigo"][U]PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah Khan said his party had instructed its workers to avoid arrests and reach Islamabad ahead of the long march and sit-in.[/U][/COLOR]

Another PML-N leader said Mian Nawaz Sharif, if not detained, was expected to reach Islamabad two days before the sit-in.

He said that despite the crackdown, Shahbaz Sharif would address a rally in Lahore on Sunday. `The two brothers will not be together at any place during the protest call because of security concerns.`

In the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, around 100 activists of political parties and lawyers were arrested on Wednesday.

Raids and search operations continued in the twin cities throughout the day to round up leaders and workers of the PML-N, Jamaat-i-Islami and Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf and lawyers.

Some PML-N leaders, including its chairman Raja Zafarul Haq and Zafar Ali Shah, were arrested but later released on the orders of the interior ministry.

Civil society activist Tahira Abdullah was picked up from her residence in a humiliating manner as police broke the main door of her house in Sector F-8. She was later released.

According to officials of the local administration, over 50 people had been arrested in Islamabad and over 40 in Rawalpindi.

Islamabad police also held briefly Athar Minallah, the spokesman for deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, but released him on the orders of Adviser to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik.

Minallah was going to the residence of Justice Iftikhar when his vehicle was blocked by police at the entrance of the Judges` Colony.

Malik said the federal government had not issued any order to arrest anyone from the capital. He said that arrests in other areas were made on the orders of provincial governments.

Retired justice Tariq Mehmood avoided the arrest by leaving his house on information that a police raid was in the offing.

Law-enforcement personnel also arrested some lawyers from their houses and in front of the former chief justice`s residence.

Eight of them were later released when their colleagues held a protest rally and sit-in outside the chief commissioner`s office.

In Karachi, six Jamaat-i-Islami leaders and activists were arrested outside the Mazar-i-Quaid where they had gone to inspect the arrangements made in connection with the long march.Reports from Hyderabad said that lawyers and workers of some political parties had gone undergrou nd to avoid arrests.

Informed sources told Dawn that the government was seriously considering to place Justice Iftikhar under house arrest or shift him to some other place. `If shifted, the deposed chief justice is likely to be put under strict vigilance in one of the rest houses somewhere in the capital,` the sources said, adding that a decision to shift him to Quetta was also under consideration.

Justice Iftikhar`s spokesman Athar Minallah lodged a complaint to the SHO Secretariat in Islamabad. He expressed the concern that the official residence of the deposed chief justice at the Judges Colony would be forcibly vacated and he would be shifted to some other place.

However, his complaint has not been registered in the police daily report on the grounds that police officials have been asked not to entertain any complaint.

Lawyers took out a torch-bearing procession in Quetta for reinstatement of the deposed judges. Led by SCBA president Ali Ahmed Kurd, the protesters gathered at the district court and marched on different roads of the city.

Talking to Dawn, Kurd condemned arrests of political activists in Punjab and Sindh and said that lawyers would not abandon the long march and the sit-in would continue till restoration of deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and other judges.

He said that a large number of political workers and members of civil society would also take part in the sit-in and long march.

PML-N Balochistan president Sardar Yaqoob Khan Nasir said that about 1,000 party activists and supporters would leave Quetta on Thursday to join the long march to Islamabad.

[COLOR="Indigo"][U]Addressing a press conference at the Quetta Press Club, he said it was regrettable that President Asif Zardari was resorting to a `civil dictatorship` to suppress a democratic movement in Punjab. He criticised the imposition of governor`s rule in Punjab, crackdown on political activists and harassment of lawyers.[/U][/COLOR]

Local PML-Q leader Anwarul Haq Kakar, who accompanied Sardar Yaqoob, announced that he was joining the PML-N.[/B]

[url]http://www.dawn.com/news/449423/hundreds-held-in-massive-crackdown[/url].