LAHORE, March 23: The government’s security dragnet effectively thwarted the ARD’s plan to hold a public meeting at the Mochi Gate on the Pakistan Day and, according to a central PPP official, police arrested some one thousand leaders and activists of the alliance components from the city or while they were on their way to the Punjab capital from various parts of the province.
ARD President Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan was externed from Lahore for a period of one month, and PPP senior vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Faheem and Syed Qaim Ali Shah from the Punjab for an equal period. Externment orders have also been prepared for many other leaders and are being served one by one.
Prominent among those arrested from the city include ARD secretary-general Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, PML(N) Vice-President Tehmina Daultana, PPP chairperson’s political secretary Naheed Khan, former PPP secretary-general Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, Punjab PPP secretary-general Rana Aftab Ahmed Khan, former federal minister Khalid Kharal, Munir Ahmed Khan and Nawaz Gondal.
All roads leading to the meeting place — which was under knee-deep water on Saturday— had been blockaded, as a result of which a curfew-like situation prevailed in the area. Only armed cops were seen patrolling the area, which is otherwise a centre of business activity, with hundreds of people moving around most of the time in connection with their routine work.
Interestingly, while the ARD leaders were stressing the importance of the Pakistan Day to justify their public meeting, none of them visited even the Minar-i-Pakistan, the place where the Pakistan Resolution was adopted by the All-India Muslim League on this day in 1940. People on duty at the Minar said that leader of no political party had visited the place throughout the day.
The government had made it clear that it would not allow anyone to reach Mochi Gate to hold the public meeting. However, the ARD leaders were determined to defy the ban.
Heavy police were deployed at the Nicholson Road residence of the Nawabzada which is centre of all alliance activities. A police DSP informed him in the afternoon that he was being expelled from the Punjab capital for a period of one month. The home secretary’s order in this regard, which was served on the senior leader, said that the Nawabzada was likely to make inflammatory speeches and his presence in the city or other activities could create feelings of hatred.
The Nawabzada, who was already anticipating the order and had packed up for his Khangarh residence, termed the order illegal, unconstitutional and violative of the fundamental rights. “What offence have I committed (that I am being expelled from Lahore)”.
Receiving the order with utmost reluctance, the senior leader declared that the alliance’s struggle for the restoration of democracy would continue unabated.
Talking to reporters in his office, packed with journalists and photographers, he defended the ARD’s decision to hold a public meeting on the Pakistan Day, saying it was imperative to apprise the electorate of the challenges facing the country and prepare them for their role in the democratic struggle.
He said he felt very proud when Alliance for Restoration of Democracy workers raised demands for democracy, without caring for the consequences they might have to face.
The Nawabzada was allowed to leave the city in his personal car, driven by some police cop.
About two dozen political activists were arrested outside his residence at about the same time.
They were raising slogans in favour of former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto.
Pakistan People’s Party Deputy information secretary Altaf Qureshi told a hurriedly convened news conference that some 1,000 people had been arrested from the Punjab, 150 of them from Lahore alone.
According to him, 60 people were arrested when they were coming to Lahore from Faisalabad. Others apprehended by police were coming to participate in the aborted public meeting from Okara, Gujranwala, Sialkot and Gujrat.
Qureshi said the government had not allowed the ARD to hold its meeting on the Pakistan Day while no hindrance had been created for the Jamaat-i-Islami for its meeting in Rawalpindi.
He said a religious group held a procession in Lahore on Friday without facing any problem at the hands of the government.
These two incidents, he said, led one to believe that the government was still patronising Jehadi organizations and discouraging others working for the revival of a democratic system.
PPP senior vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Faheem criticized the government for disallowing the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy to hold its public meeting despite the fact that the coalition had just no intention to create any problem.
Talking to reporters by phone from the Lahore airport before leaving for Karachi upon externment orders, he said at a time when the government planned to hold the elections, and a referendum before them, there was no justification for it to disallow the ARD to mobilize the masses.
LAHORE, March 23: The government’s security dragnet effectively thwarted the ARD’s plan to hold a public meeting at the Mochi Gate on the Pakistan Day and, according to a central PPP official, police arrested some one thousand leaders and activists of the alliance components from the city or while they were on their way to the Punjab capital from various parts of the province.
