KARACHI, Oct 15: The Alliance for Restoration of Democracy has announced that the deposed chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, will be accorded a warm welcome on his arrival here at the Karachi airport on Saturday morning.

This was announced by Salim Zia of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz while representing the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy at a joint press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday.

Spelling out the details of the programme, Salim Zia said that Justice Chaudhry would reach at the Quaid-i-Azam International Airport 9.30am from where he would be taken in the form of a procession to Hyderabad. On his way, he would address roadside gatherings at eight points, including Malir, Quaidabad, Steel Mills, Nooriabad and Jamshoro, where reception camps would be set up. In Hyderabad, Mr Chaudhry would address the Hyderabad District Bar and the Sindh High Court Bar Association.

Mr Zia said that political parties would continue their movement for the restoration of an independent judiciary as the ARD recognised only Mr Chaudhry as the chief justice of Pakistan.

“All parties in the alliance considered the Nov 2 action of General Pervez Musharraf as unconstitutional,” he said, adding that Gen Musharraf himself had admitted that his Nov 2 action, which he had taken as the chief of the army staff, was unconstitutional.

Terming the Bajaur operation illegal, he said had there been an independent judiciary the country would not have been in the present crisis.

Mohammad Hussain Mehanti of the Jama’at-i-Islami, Sardar Rajput of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf, Mohammad Afzal Khan of the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party, Nadeem Ghauri of the Sunni Tehreek and Naeem Qureshi of the Karachi District Bar were also present at the press conference.