QUETTA, March 11: Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai has given call for a strike in Quetta on Tuesday in protest against what he called president’s ‘unconstitutional’ action of suspending Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

Speaking at a press conference here on Sunday, Mr Achakzai said the party’s deputy chairman Abdur Rahim Mandokhel would attend the conference convened by Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed on Monday in Islamabad to discuss the judiciary’s crisis.

He said the March 13 strike was aimed at conveying a message that people rejected the presidential reference against the CJ. “We have serious reservations against the judiciary, including Chief Justice Chaudhry, for backing dictatorship against democracy but the democratic forces cannot endorse the president’s action as our struggle is for the supremacy of parliament, independence of the judiciary, a free Election Commission and freedom of the press,” he said.

The PMAP leader urged the leadership of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and the MMA to plan joint action in view of the crisis in the judiciary and the presidential reference against the chief justice. He said the PMAP, in addition to the strike, would hold protest marches in the provincial capital on Tuesday, which would culminate in a public meeting at Bacha Khan Chowk. He said black flags would be hoisted on buildings.

He suggested that a roundtable conference of political parties should be held to devise a programme to take the nation out of the present imbroglio. He said the ‘unwise’ policies of President Pervez Musharraf’s government had caused uncertainty in the country. Mr Achakzai said the chief justice’s verdict in the Steel Mills case and suo motu notice of the ‘disappearance’ of some individuals had annoyed the government, owing to which he had faced the wrath of the military ruler.

In reply to a question about imposition of martial law, the PMAP leader said that country was being governed by an army general.