May 14, 2007	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 26, 1428

PESHAWAR, May 13: The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal on Sunday staged separate protest demonstrations, urging President Gen Pervez Musharraf to resign immediately.

They held him responsible for the violence that took place on Saturday in Karachi. The Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party also denounced the killings in Karachi.

Condemning what they termed state-sponsored terrorism, PML-N leaders denounced the killing of innocent people in Karachi at the hands of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and called for setting up an impartial and fully-empowered inquiry commission to probe into the indiscriminate use of force.

The party’s provincial leaders Haji Afzal, Arshad Qureshi, Sharafat Ali Mubarak, Afzal Penyala and Jehanzeb Khattak led the protesters, who were chanting anti-government slogans.

Speakers said that the country was facing different challenges because of the president’s wrong policies.

Criticising the Sindh government and the city administration, they said violence happened despite the presence of police and Rangers, who overlooked MQM’s excesses in violation of their primary duty of maintaining peace and law and order in the city.

Criticising the rulers, the PML-N leaders said that while innocent people were being killed mercilessly in Karachi, people were dancing in Islamabad during a government-sponsored public meeting in Islamabad.

Denouncing the attack on

the offices of Aaj TV, they said it exposed the government’s

real face, adding that it demolished the myth of media freedom.

They said that government had completely failed on

all fronts and President Gen Musharraf should immediately resign and announce the holding of fair and transparent elections.

MMA: Activists of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal also condemned the killings during a protest demonstration they took out. Protesters held President Gen Pervez Musharraf and the MQM responsible for the violence and urged the country’s political forces to unite against “such barbarism”.

PMAP: The Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party condemned what it called state-sponsored terrorism in Karachi and vowed to continue its struggle for the restoration of democracy and judiciary’s supremacy.

In a statement issued here on Sunday, the PMAP spokesman said that the opposition parties had planned peaceful rallies on the occasion of Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry’s arrival in Karachi, but the government, in collaboration with the MQM, blocked all roads to sabotage

his plan to address the members of the bar associations in Karachi.

The party’s spokesman said that the party’s Karachi secretary Mehtab Afridi was killed by MQM’s firing while scores of party workers were injured.

He paid tribute to democratic forces for keeping steadfast in the face of terrorists and dictator and vowed to continue to struggle for the establishment of the rule of law.