ISLAMABAD, March 25: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Sunday the government was ready to face the challenge of Monday’s ARD-sponsored protest day against the suspension of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, urging political parties to keep their protest peaceful. Otherwise, he warned, the law would take its course.

Talking to newsmen at the PM House on Sunday, the prime minister said the opposition had been trying for the past four years to find any pretext to launch a movement against the government and having failed in its efforts, it was trying to turn purely a legal and constitutional issue into a political matter.

“It is a serious and important issue which will be decided by the Supreme Judicial Council and we all must wait for its decision and refrain from taking political advantage out of it,” the prime minister observed.

When told about a general perception that government was bent upon destroying all pillars of the state, including judiciary and media, Mr Aziz said it was not true, claiming that parliament had done more legislative work than any other parliament in the past, economy of the country was vibrant and growing and print and the electronic media enjoyed an unprecedented freedom.

About reports of country-wide arrests of hundreds of political workers ahead of the opposition’s protest day, the prime minister said: “It is part of preventive measures that the administration takes on such occasions.”

Mr Aziz refused to comment on reports about back-channel contacts between the government and Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry for a patch-up, including consideration at the highest level about the presidential reference, and described these rumours “mere reports”.

Without clearly opposing Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s intention to address different Bar associations of the country, the prime minister said: “It is his (the Chief Justice’s) own decision on which I would not like to comment.”

The prime minister described the oath-taking of the Acting Chief Justice, Mr Justice Bhagwandas, as the right step and said the government was determined to implement the SJC verdict in letter and spirit.

When his attention was drawn to four US senators’ letter that urged Gen Musharraf to allow exiled leaders Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto to return home and take part in elections, the prime minister said: “They (the two leaders) can come home according to law and every one is free to make such decisions.”

He dismissed US Senate foreign relations committee members’ letter addressed to President Musharraf as `another letter,’ and said: “Everyone writes letters and this is one of them which will be responded to appropriately.”