ISLAMABAD, May 11: The opposition in the Senate on Friday warned the government of dangerous repercussions of the situation in Karachi because of MQM’s insistence on holding a rally in an attempt to block the caravan of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on Saturday.

The opposition staged a token walkout in protest against arrests of political workers, police raids and removal of reception camps set up by lawyers in Karachi.

Speaking on a point of order, Leader of the Opposition Mian Raza Rabbani said: “I want to warn the government of the volatile situation in Karachi as police have made massive arrests of activists and office-bearers of the PPP, PML-N, Jamaat-i-Islami, Awami National Party and component parties of the MMA and removed a number of reception camps set up to welcome Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.”

He alleged that official resources were being used for the MQM rally, free transport was being provided and patwaris and government employees were being engaged.

He accused the Sindh government of adopting double standards: facilitating its own rally and trying to block reception of the chief justice.

Mr Rabbani assured the house that the opposition would remain peaceful and avoid any step that caused a confrontation.

ANP leader Asfandyar Wali Khan complained that more than 150 activists of his party had been held in Karachi. “If we are living in Pakistan we all belong to it and all of us should have equal rights to hold rallies,” he said.

He said that in Islamabad officials of the Capital Development Authority had been given the task of setting up the stage and providing facilities for the government rally.

Prof Ibrahim Khan of the MMA announced that the opposition would hold a rally in Islamabad at the same place where President Pervez Musharraf would address the PML rally.

Kamran Murtaza of the PPP said the president, being in uniform, had no right to address political rallies and seek people’s votes.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Kamil Ali Agha claimed that hundreds of thousands of people would attend the PML rally, adding that the government had no intention to curb the freedom of expression or opposition’s right to hold protest rallies.

He said that complaints about arrests, raids and hurdles in the way of opposition’s rally would be looked into.

The house agreed and suspended relevant rules to debate the law and order situation, which will continue on Monday when the upper house will resume its proceedings.

Opening the debate, Abdur Rahim Mandokhel of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party said the country was in grip of lawbreakers, militants and extremists and there was no writ of law. He drew the lawmakers’ attention to the activities of the Taliban in Tank and in tribal areas where parents had been asked to withdraw their children from schools and hand them over to the jihad groups.

In Bara, he said, there were two armed groups fighting each other. “Both are Muslims, but killing each other’s men and over 80,000 security personnel deployed in the area have failed to arrest them.”

If this trend, he warned, was not stopped, the country would plunge into quagmire of extremism and Talibanisation.

He said that even Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s house was not safe from missile attacks and interior minister’s rally in Charsadda had been hit by suicide bombers. Hangu and Parachinar have become battlegrounds and law-enforcement agencies are hapless.

Mr Mandokhel said extremist elements were forcing women to remain in homes and closing down girls’ schools in the NWFP. This trend, he said, posed serious to society and the country.