02 January 2005	Sunday	20 Ziqa'ad 1425

ISLAMABAD, Jan 1: The security staff at the Nath House in Gujrat where PML President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had arranged a grand reception for President General Pervez Musharraf on Saturday barred the Vice-President of the party, Kabir Ali Wasti, from entering the venue.

"Your name is not on the list of invitees," a lowly Army personnel inchagre of the security at the VIP gate curtly informed an aghast Wasti.

Those PML volunteers who were assisting the Army security personnel at this gate and some of whom recognized Mr Wasti also appeared helpless and one of them said, "We cannot do anything, the whole of Nath House has been taken over by the Army."

Many other top PML office-bearers who had come to the reception from far and wide on the invitation of the Chaudhries were also refused entry on the same pretext. Mr Wasti who claimed that he was personally invited by his party's president to the reception told Dawn that Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had telephoned him on Thursday and directed him to also bring with him a team of journalists from Islamabad.

"These journalists were also invited by the PML president personally and, therefore, they accompanied me to the venue of the reception only to be told by the security staff that it had no instructions to allow any person other than parliamentarians from the VIP gate," he added.

The journalists who had accompanied Mr Wasti to the Nath House on return told this reporter that they were asked to enter the venue by another gate which they found to be besieged by a thick crowd of PML workers.

"Only one person was being allowed to enter at a time from this gate after a thorough body search and almost about 5,000 people were standing out trying to get in," they said.

So, finding it impossible to enter the venue which was surrounded on all sides by a thick cordon of fully armed Army personnel with guns at the ready and with all kinds of military vehicles parked on one side, Mr Wasti and the journalists decided to return to Islamabad rather than waste time arguing with the security personnel who appeared to be visibly nervous.

The security arrangements, according to this disappointed team of journalists, were so tight that no person, not even cabinet ministers including the National Assembly Speaker, were allowed to drive their cars near the Nath House.

All the VIPs were asked to park there cars some two kilometres away on the premises of a factory from where dilapidated jalopies called coaches were running shuttle services to the Nath House.

According to these journalists, the city of Gujrat itself appeared to be taking no notice of the grand reception at the Nath House, while some 5,000 or so PML workers were seen being driven to Gujrat in cars and buses from various other cities of Punjab.