LAHORE, Sept 7: A PPP seminar here on Tuesday demanded trial on the charge of subverting the constitution of people who were advising Gen Pervez Musharraf not to quit the army post.

The demand was made through a resolution adopted at the seminar held by the PPP's Human Rights Committee which condemned Punjab Chief Minister Pervez Elahi, PML president Shujaat Husain and others for asserting that the president should remain in his uniform for another five years.

It also demanded of the chief minister to step down for his undemocratic and unconstitutional approach to a purely democratic problem. Senator Latif Khan Khosa was in the chair.

Another resolution condemned armed operation in Balochistan and the Northern Areas and said the government action had endangered the unity of the state and undermined the federation. The resolution opposed the move to set up cantonments in Balochistan and said such an announcement had already led to an uprising in that province.

Speakers were of the view that a state institution had taken the country as a hostage, inducted armed forces personnel on key posts, occupied all the national resources, denied socio-economic justice to the people, deprived the federating units of their constitutional rights, destroyed all national institutions and damaged the social contract among provinces.

They said political parties and all other democratic forces would have to launch a mass movement with the objective of establishing once for all that governance was the inalienable right of the people. The movement would rid the country of repeated army interventions, they added.

PML-N MNA Khwaja Saad Rafiq said the ARD might consider resigning from the assemblies en-bloc as part of a democratic struggle. While most of the speakers pleaded that the ARD should restore to the people their constitutional rights by going into a mass movement, Mr Rafiq strongly pleaded for the co-operation of the MMA saying the ARD alone would find the achievement of the goal difficult.

He said despite the MMA's "grave" mistake of voting for the LFO to become a part of the constitution, a democratic struggle with the help of the religious parties was highly desirable.

Mr Rafiq also talked of restructuring of the armed forces. Former foreign minister Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali said a state of crisis was looming large because the armed forces had taken complete control of the country which no longer had a constitution which promised rights to the people and the federating units.

He was of the opinion that the change of three prime ministers in two months was also an indication of the crisis as the undemocratic rulers traditionally did not want a prime minister but a personal staff officer and Shaukat Aziz had the same status.

Mr Ali was of the view that civil war like conditions existed in Balochistan because the rulers did not want a political solution but wanted to suppress the people there with brute force.

He said the decision to establish cantonments in Balochistan was no different from the policy of Ziaul Haq who responded to the call for democracy in Sindh with Pannoo Aqil cantonment.

ANP secretary-general Ehsan Wyne said undemocratic forces had started interfering in national affairs soon after the partition and their occupation of the country was now complete.

He said the rulers were advancing a foreign agenda and conspiring against the country by using force in two smaller provinces. Former ministers Makhdoom Shabuddin and S. M. Masood, Punjab Assembly former speaker Rafiq Ahmad Sheikh, Lahore High Court Bar Association president Ahmad Awais and Supreme Court Bar Association former president Hamid Khan also spoke.

The seminar also demanded the release of Asif Zardari and Javed Hashmi and ending the victimization of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif enabling them to return home and play their due political role.