LAHORE, Nov 7: After lawyers and mediamen, the government on Wednesday started hauling up the leaders and workers of one of its allies, the PPP, after party chairperson Benazir Bhutto announced that the Nov 9 public meeting would be held at Rawalpindi according to schedule.

PPP’s Punjab information secretary Farzana Raja told Dawn that the houses of almost all PPP leaders were being raided and in the absence of the required persons, the people on the premises were tortured, bundled into police vans and taken to unknown places.

“We have been receiving reports from all over Punjab that dozens of PPP workers had been arrested. The number of our people being arrested is on the increase after every minute. We have reports that the government has issued detention orders of all and sundry in the PPP and so far nearly 1,000 of them have been picked up.

“Our leadership had decided to go underground because we are to hold the Nov 9 meeting at Rawalpindi and the country-wide protest against dictatorship from Nov 13.”

PPP’s Punjab deputy information secretary Iqbal Sialvi said the police were entering the houses of PPP men either by breaking the doors or by scaling the outer walls. “Some 20 policemen entered my house, abused the women and tore their clothes when told about my absence, dragged my sons Mohsin Iqbal and Yousaf Iqbal, their two friends and my tenants Azhar and Ahmad out of the premises and bundled them into police vans.”

Sialvi said the police also raided the house of former MPA Dr Ziaullah Bangash and took away his son Ahsan Bangash.

Ghulam Abbas said his house in Sialkot was raided. “The police also raided the houses of my brother advocate Qamar Abbas and nephew advocate Ali Raza.

The unruly policemen thoroughly searched the house and left hurling threats. It is the worst example of fascism. Such things never happened during the martial law of Gen Ziaul Haq,” he said. A capital city police officer confirmed that the crackdown on the PPP activists had been launched.