ISLAMABAD, April 30: The country’s joint opposition would give a deadline to President Gen Pervez Musharraf to step down in September, and hold free and fair elections under an independent election commission and interim setup.

“If the general does not step down in September, we will quit assemblies and mobilise masses to control Islamabad. The time is ripe for kicking out military from politics once and for all. For this, we only need a hundred thousand devoted people to peacefully capture Islamabad,” said Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) President Qazi Hussain Ahmed here on Sunday.

They were speaking at PTI’s national convention, which was attended by more than 2,000 PTI’s office-bearers and workers from across the country, including Waziristan and Balochistan.

The two opposition leaders said a military general had made all departments subservient to him, including judiciary, and was killing his own people in the tribal areas on the directives of US President George W. Bush. They also alleged that Gen Musharraf was helping America to install an anti-Pakistan and pro-India government in Afghanistan, a move that had made the country’s western borders unsafe.

Imran Khan said PTI’s workers would not be less in number or weak in resolution than those of the MMA when they marched towards the federal capital for the removal of the military dictator. Qazi Hussain Ahmed said the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy was also willing to join the movement. “PTI does not accept the present political system under a uniformed general and considers his continuance in office as illegal and unconstitutional,” Mr Khan said.

By refusing to take off his uniform, he has proven that slogan of ‘Pakistan First’ in reality meant ‘General Musharraf First’, the PTI chairman said.

PTI, he added, was convinced that Gen Musharraf’s policies had demoralised the people, crippled vital national institutions and turned national heroes into villains. In the absence of a credible justice system, the country’s sovereignty had been compromised. Events had proven that military junta was neither competent nor qualified to rule. Any further continuation of their rule was likely to have disastrous consequences for the federation, he maintained. Mr Khan said once overthrown, Gen Musharraf would be tried by his party in courts for the loss of lives in Waziristan and Balochistan.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed said he feared the day when people in the tribal areas would take side with the pro-Indian Afghan government to attack Pakistan.

“Musharraf’s claims that there is no East Pakistan-like situation (when Bangladesh came into being) in Balochistan. The people of Pakistan know that he is telling a lie. A separatist movement has already started in the province. Believe me, it is only religion that is still binding the province with the rest of the country,” he said. The MMA chief said the joint Pak/Afghan/US military exercise in the tribal areas was a direct attack on the country’s sovereignty, and a conspiracy against the tribal people.

He said Gen Musharraf had forced all the senior military officials to retire and created such a situation in the army that the most senior official next to him was 10 years junior.