KARACHI, Oct 12: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz staged countrywide protest to mark the October 12 military coup that toppled the elected government of its chief, Mian Nawaz Sharif, in 1999.

Protest rallies and public meetings were held in all big and small towns of Sindh, including Karachi, to condemn the overthrow.

The PML-N, Sindh, observed ‘black day’ across the province and organised a protest rally outside the press club here on Thursday to mark the anniversary.

Participants of the rally, wearing black armbands, carried banners, placards and posters inscribed with slogans against Gen Pervez Musharraf and the military takeover. They also torched a copy of Gen Musharraf’s book: In The Line Of Fire, and raised slogans against the military government and in favour of the restoration of democracy in the country. Before burning it, the PML workers cut out the Pakistani flag, sacred names and photographs of Nawaz Sharif from the title and contents of the book.

Along with the women workers, there was a large number of the male party workers and leaders who participated in the protest rally.

They were addressed by Sardar Abdul Raheem, Mamnoon Hussain, Salim Zia, Perveen Bashir, Saurath Thebo, Tariq Khan, Najma Baji, Mukhtar Kanhorvi, Israr Shah Miswani, Hameed Khan, Anwar Niazi and other party leaders.

Terming the last seven years of the military government ‘the darkest period of the history of Pakistan’, the speakers declared that Pakistan and Pervez Musharraf could not go together.

They said that people across Pakistan were observing the black day against the dictatorship of the rebellious army general who had resorted to overthrowing an elected government and trampling over the constitution in defiance of the mandate given to the PML by the country’s 160 million people, who had been held hostage for seven years now.

Gen Musharraf’s black reign of seven years has put the country integrity, solidarity, survival and sovereignty at stake, the speakers observed.

They claimed that that the black era of the dictatorship was infested with corruption and plunder, with other features being sell-out of precious and prestigious national assets, worst ever load-shedding, unemployment, retrenchments, price-hike, anarchy, massacre of unarmed civilians of Balochistan and Waziristan, insult to the national heroes and leaders like Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, hatred among provinces, patronage of the traditional imperialists, political victimisation, secret bargaining on Kashmir, blackmailing through NAB, tampering with the Constitution, etc.

At another protest meeting, Vice President of PML-N Mamnoon Hussain, who is also a former governor of Sindh, said that Oct 12, 1999 was the blackest day of the country’s history as on this day, an army general had toppled the elected government of Mian Nawaz Sharif that had been enjoying brute majority in the parliament.

The general, he added, seized power and overthrew the constitutional and legal government in sheer violation of the country’s Constitution.

The gathering was held after an Iftar dinner hosted by PML-N Minority Wing leader Saleem Anjum to mark the occasion. It was attended by many PML, ARD and MMA leaders, including Mian Raza Rabbani, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Prof N. D. Khan, Rashid Rabbani, Syed Muzaffar Hashmi, Naimatullah Khan, Mufti Ferozuddin Hazarvi, Basharat Mirza and Nusrat Mirza.

Referring to the book authored by Gen Musharraf, he said that the it was a collection of contradictions, and recalled that at the time of staging the coup, the military chief had spelled out his seven priorities that ranged from promoting the country’s prestige and rebuilding its image to the revival of economy, and included a better law and order, prompt justice and cleansing the government institutions by removing politics.

However, he pointed out despite, despite the passage of seven years, the military dictator had failed so far to deliver on any of the enunciated objectives. Instead, he always surrendered before the US, especially in the aftermath of the 9/11 event.

Gen Musharraf had caused great damage to the image and prestige of the country, he observed.

Instead of promoting harmony among provinces, the ruling clique only promoted hatred that had now increased to an unprecedented level.

Regarding the claim of having improved the economy, Mr Hussain noted a wide gulf between the rich and the poor because of the uncontrolled price-hike, inflation, unemployment, retrenchment, etc., and said that all these factors had made the life of common man extremely miserable.

More than $20 billion remitted by overseas Pakistanis in the wake of the 9/11 had been spent in consumer financing instead of setting up industries, he said.

The state of law and order could be gauged from the fact that street crime had touched an alarming proportion while heinous crime like kidnappings, dacoities, murders, car-hijacking and rape had become order of the day. Dispensation of prompt justice and good governance could be assessed from the situation where no one could lodge even an FIR of the offence to which he would have fallen victim.

The so called accountability process through the NAB had only brought a bad name to Pakistan as all those whose cases had been investigated by the Bureau have now been awarded ministries.

Earlier, Saleem Anjum presented welcomed address.