LAHORE, Nov 8: Police crackdown on opposition activists continued for the fifth consecutive day on Thursday and a number of arrests were made. PPP has been the prime target since Wednesday evening, when the party chairperson Benazir Bhutto announced a public meeting in Rawalpindi and long march on Islamabad.

Lahore PPP information secretary Zakrya Butt claimed the police had detained more than 100 activists in a single day with no let-up in the intensity of the crackdown.

The police nabbed PP-160 ticket holder Ali Jutt, UC-28 nazim Lohari Arif Nasim Kashmiri, PP-139 youth wing president Aslam Shamsi, two sons of senior leader from PP-139 Main Abdul Khaliq, Irfaan and Ikraam.

According to Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf’s Lahore chapter, their 26 activists were detained by the police from different parts of the city.

A release issued by the Jamaat-I-Islami said the police and personnel in plainclothes continued besieging the Mansoora headquarters for the fourth consecutive day, blocked the entry of people, conducted strict checking of vehicles, and arrested several workers.

Among the arrested were Anjuman Tajran Mansoora president Sarfraz Aalam and residents of Mansoora Rasheed Ahmed, A D Jameel, Qasim Wakeel Alvi, Muhammad Ahmed and others, the release claimed.

The release further claimed that seven JI activists who were having their dinner at a near-by hotel were arrested late Wednesday night.

“Each police station has a target of at least five PPP activists and we are obeying the direction issued by the high-ups,” a supervisory police officer told Dawn asking not to be named.

He said earlier the same target was for the arrest of PML-N, PTI and Jamaat-i-Islami leaders and workers.

Qazi: MMA president Qazi Husain Ahmad says lifting of emergency and holding of elections without restoration of the judiciary to its Nov 3 form will be meaningless.

He was talking to media at Mansoora where he had been put under house arrest.

He protested barring of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Allama Sajid Naqvi, Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, Akram Durrani, Pir Ijaz Hashmi and other MMA leaders to enter Jamaat-I-Islami’s headquarters.

In an obvious reference to the PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto, he said some people were free to hold meetings and rallies and were in a dialogue with the government, while the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal was being debarred from even holding mutual consultations.

Answering a question, he said that he had told Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who had on behalf of Ms Bhutto invited the MMA chief to a proposed ‘all parties conference’, that the alliance would responded to the invitation after consulting All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) members.

Qazi said that he and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif discussed the invitation and decided that they would accept it provided Ms Bhutto cancelled her deal with Gen Musharraf and supported the demand of restoring the Supreme Court as it was before Nov 3. The demand should be echoed by all political parties, lawyers and civil society, he added.

Meanwhile, police continued the siege of Mansoora. However, some media persons managed to enter the premises after scaling the boundary wall.

Police arrested a trader and three other residents of Mansoora.