18 February 2004	Wednesday	26 Zilhaj 1424

GUJRANWALA, Feb 17: The protest against the government on the call given by the ARD continued in many cities of the Punjab on the fifth consecutive day on Tuesday.

In Gujranwala, the protest camp was set up outside the district court which was attended by PPP central information secretary Altaf Qureshi, MNA Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, former MNA and district president Abdullah Virk, federal council member Khwaja Aslam Lone, district general secretary Mian Azhar Hasan Dar and Punjab PYO president Tariq Navid Lone.

Speaking at the camp, they criticized the government policies and claimed that the country was being run by the US. They urged the government to stop humiliation of nuclear scientists, especially Dr Qadeer Khan.

They claimed that the government wanted to roll back nuclear programme on the instructions of the US. They demanded that former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif should be allowed to come back and Asif Zardari and other political leaders be released immediately.

SIALKOT: The ARD set up a day-long anti-government protest camp for the fifth consecutive day where PPP and PML-N workers raised slogans against the government and the president.

Leaders of both the parties said at the camp that the government was earning a bad name in the world by humiliating nuclear scientists. They were of the view that the rulers had put the country's nuclear programme at stake to please America.

FAISALABAD: The PPP set up a protest camp in Madina Town which was attended by Punjab PPP secretary-general MPA Rana Aftab Ahmad, district president Rana Farooq Saeed, city president Mahmoodul Hasan Dar, MPAs Jehanzeb Imtiaz Gill, Riaz Shahid, Dr Asad Moazzam, Noorun Nisa, Ijaz Virk, Nisar Akbar Khan, Mustafa Bajwa, Shujaullah Khan, Raja Safdar and others.

The participants also observed a token hunger strike and vowed to continue their protest till the removal of Musharraf regime. The PPP leaders said the PPP was planning to launch a mass contact campaign throughout the country and a decision in this regard would be announced soon.