ISLAMABAD, April 2: Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rahman on Monday told a hurriedly-called press conference that combined opposition’s country-wide protest on Tuesday against Gen Musharraf’s action against the Chief Justice of Pakistan would be held as per schedule despite large-scale arrest of opposition leaders and workers, including the house arrest of MMA President Qazi Hussain Ahmed.
The MMA secretary-general said that apart from some arrests made in the federal capital, reports coming from other parts of the country indicated that police had raided residences of political leaders and workers and harassed their family members.
“Despite all this protest demonstrations of opposition parties would be held in Islamabad and provincial and district headquarters of the country to express solidarity with the lawyers’ community,” he declared.
He said Gen Musharraf’s `adventurism’ against the judicial system was detrimental to country’s solidarity and leaders of all political parties would take part in Tuesday’s protest outside the Supreme Court building.
In reply to a question about resignations from assemblies, the MMA leader asserted that if the leaders of the religious alliance had resigned from assemblies or quit provincial governments, it would have strengthened hands of Gen Musharraf.
Referring to a question with regard to his party’s reluctance to quit the governments in Balochistan and the NWFP, he said he believed the move would have led to imposition of the governor’s rule and it was unacceptable in any circumstances.
He claimed there were no differences among component parties of the MMA over the resignation issue, adding that there was a process of consultation which ultimately created unanimity of views.
In reply to a question about his recent meeting in London with PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif, Maulana Fazal said the meeting had proved to be highly fruitful as things had started moving towards forming a grand alliance of opposition parties.
