ISLAMABAD, March 10: Opposition parties would launch a countrywide movement from April ‘to oust Gen Musharraf through the use of people’s power,” said Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader Siddiqul Farooq on Friday.

“The combined opposition had decided to organize public meetings in the major cities in April as the beginning of the movement,” he told Dawn while giving details of the decisions taken at a meeting of the steering committee of the combined opposition held at the PML-N secretariat here on Friday.

The meeting was presided over by Secretary General of the PML-N Iqbal Zafar Jhagra and attended by Hafiz Hussain Ahmed and Liaqat Baloch of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour of the Awami National Party, Raja Pervez Ashraf of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, Amanullah Kanrani of the Jamhoori Watan Party, Abdul Rauf Mengal of the Balochistan National Party and others from the smaller parties. The meeting continued for more than three hours.

The steering committee was constituted at the roundtable of the opposition parties in Islamabad on February 27 and it was assigned the task of chalking out a plan for launching the movement.

Mr Farooq said there was a consensus among the opposition leaders that the ‘present regime has become a security risk’ for the country and the people and therefore, the time had come to launch a decisive and forceful movement against the rulers.

In the first phase, he said, public meetings would be held in Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar and Rawalpindi. Their dates would be announced after consultation with the opposition.

The PML-N leader said continued exploitation of the people and growing dangers to the country’s integrity had united the opposition and now Gen Musharraf would not be able to create rift in their ranks.

According to him, the meeting noted with concern that so far ‘6,000 innocent people have been arrested in Balochistan and Gen Musharraf has converted the province into a prison.’