November 08, 2007	Thursday	Shawwal 26, 1428

RAWALPINDI, Nov 7: Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and the city government look set on a collision course as while the former is determined to hold a rally in the city on Friday and the latter not to allow it.

City mandarins insist they would enforce the ban on public gathering planned at Liaquat Bagh on Friday under Section 144 and warned of possible terrorism on the occasion.

“We have received fresh intelligence reports that 22 suicide attackers have entered Rawalpindi, therefore, we cannot allow any public gathering in the city and we have restricted any kind of activity by imposing Section 144,” City Nazim Raja Javed Ikhlas told Dawn here on Wednesday.

He said that the entire routes to city and the meeting point would be completely blocked in order to prevent the people from reaching the spot.

Mr Ikhlas advised PPP chairwomen Benazir Bhutto to postpone the event in order to avert a Karachi-like situation, in which about 140 people were killed on Oct 18. “She would lament her decision later,” the city nazim remarked.

Meanwhile, local PPP leaders vowed to hold the rally to show the party’s public strength.

“We have installed banners and posters in defiance with the local administration who had removed them earlier and we have completed the campaign for bringing people to the venue on Friday,” PPP leaders Amir Fida Paracha, Atif Kiani, Nasir Mir, Sohail Pasha, Mian Khurram Rasool and Chaudhry Waris told Dawn.

They said the party’s elected representatives, the People’s Students Federation and People’s Youth Organisation had been asked to mobilise the masses in the 275 union councils of Rawalpindi district so that maximum people could attend the rally, which they claimed would be the biggest ever public gathering in Punjab, adding that people from the NWFP would also attend the rally.

Mian Khurram Rasool, who has been given the task of media publicity for the rally, warned that party workers would physically resist hurdles of the administration.

He rebutted the claim that suicide bombers were likely to attack the rally and said that the government was trying to terrorise the people.