PESHAWAR, Oct 24: Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy Chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim has said that all those judges who had legitimized the military coup and allowed changes into the Constitution would be tried along with army generals under Article 6 when the ARD came into power.

Speaking at a public meeting organized by the ARD to launch its campaign against the government here at the historic Qissa Khwani Bazaar on Friday, the PPP chairman said the judges of superior courts were equally responsible for the successive military takeovers in the country.

He said after every military coup, the judges had legalized it under the ‘doctrine of necessity’ which caused a great damage to the democracy.

Referring to the ongoing army operation in the Southern Waziristan Agency, Makhdomm Amin Fahim demanded of the government to stop the action immediately. He said it was not correct to consider the courageous tribal people as harbourers of Al Qaeda fugitives. Likewise destruction of their (tribesmen’s) houses was also unjust, he added.

“The army is fed through people’s taxes and as such it cannot launch an illegal operation against the taxpayers,” he added.

Speaking about the proposed water projects, Amin Fahim said Gen Pervez Musharraf and his companions were pursuing a ‘divide and rule’ policy on the Kalabagh dam issue. He said consensus among the four federating units was essential for the construction of the dam, otherwise it would create disunity.

Amin Fahim rejected government’s claims about the betterment of the socio-economic conditions of the country, and said the country was passing through a multi-dimensional crisis but the rulers were painting a wrong picture of the situation.

Poverty and unemployment had become two permanent features of Pakistan but the rulers were claiming a historic increase in the foreign exchange reserves, he observed.

In his speech, ARD president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi sharply criticized the army generals for what he said turning the country into a US satellite and betraying the Afghan people after the 9/11. The military generals were the enemy of the democracy and the rule of law, he charged.

Recalling the efforts of politicians for the nuclear programme, he said PPP chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had laid the foundations of this project and Mian Nawaz Sharif had completed it, but the generals punished both of them.

Former US President Bill Clinton, he said, had telephoned to Nawaz Sharif many times and asked him not to carry out nuclear tests, but he (Nawaz Sharif) refused to succumb to the US pressure. But, a single telephone call from Mr George Bush caused the generals to take a U-turn on Afghanistan, he added.

After the dismissal of the Nawaz government, unemployment and poverty had increased manifold, but Gen Musharraf and his fellows were making tall claims about economic stability. The common man had lost all hopes for a respectable living under the army rule, he added.

It was the desire of the late Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan to hold a rally in Peshawar and launch the mass-contact movement from the historic bazaar of Peshawar which the ARD had honoured by holding the meeting here, he added.

ARD secretary-general Zafar Iqbal Jhagra, PPP provincial chief Khwaja Mohammad Khan Hoti, PML-N provincial chief Pir Sabir Shah, Pakistan Democratic Party chief Nawabzada Mansoor Ali Khan, PML-N secretary-general Sar Anjam Khan, Abdul Qadeer Khamosh of the Jamiat Ahl-i-Hadith, Saifullah Saif of the PML (Qasim), Malik Naveed and others also spoke on the occasion.