March 24, 2002	Sunday	Muharram 9, 1423

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LAHORE, March 23: Police late on Saturday night released 127 ARD workers but kept 15 others in detention.

Punjab home secretary Brig Ejaz Ahmad Shah (retired) said in an official handout that political activists had been arrested from Lahore and those who were coming from Okara, Faisalabad and Gujranwala.

He said 15 of the arrested, charged with creating law and order situation and attacking police, would be tried under the law.

Earlier in the day, the police baton charged scores of ARD leaders and workers who managed to reach the venue of the meeting outside Mochi Gate in spite of heavy deployment.

The police had sealed the venue of the meeting since morning in a radius of several kilometres. No body, including the residents, was allowed to enter or leave the sealed areas.

A large number of police contingent had cordoned off the venue besides setting up barbed wires on all entry and exit points and its nearby localities. Similarly, the residence of the Nawabzada had been surrounded by a heavy police contingent.

The Punjab administration had ordered the police not to let anyone reach the venue of the meeting at any cost. But PPP leader Naheed Khan and 10 others, including Sajida Mir and Shamim Niazi, managed to reach there from a link road and started chanting slogans. They pelted stones at the police. The police, however, arrested them swiftly and herded them into a van.

In the meantime, 20 PPP and the PML(N) activists also emerged and stoned police which resorted to baton charge before rounding them up in 10 minutes or so. At least one PML(N) worker and two policemen sustained minor injuries during the clash.

Later in the evening, some 30 workers and office-bearers of the PPP and the PML(N) courted arrest outside the residence of the Nawabzada at Nicholson Road after he was taken away in his car driven by a police inspector.

The Nawabzada was taken away after two-hour long negotiations with the police officers as he was not ready to leave in a police van. He left for his hometown in Khangargh, Muzaffargargh, whereas Makhdoom Amin Fahim and Qaim Ali Shah were waiting for their flights for Dubai and Karachi, respectively, at the Lahore airport.

The Punjab government, sources said, had given police a list of 15 politicians it wanted to be expelled from the city. They included Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Naheed Khan, Sardar Zulfikar Khosa, Safdar Abbasi, Haji Khurshid, Zafar Ali Shah, Malik Hakmeen, Malik Sohail, Tehmina Daultana, Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Mufti Feroz Din, Amanullah Khan, Khuda-i-Noor and Qaim Ali Shah.

“Nawabzada, Amin Faheem and Qaim Ali Shah have already been expelled,” Lahore District Police Officer (DPO) Javed Noor told Dawn in the evening, adding “the others are being banished.” He said the police had already taken into their custody Naheed Khan and Malik Hakmeen and were conducting raids to arrest the rest of the people who were to be expelled.

The arrested women workers were shifted to the Race Course Woman Police Station while the men are detained at different police stations at Lower Mall, Naulakha, Anarkali and Sarwar Road.