GUJRANWALA, Nov 9: In a bid to foil the public meeting of Benazir Bhutto in Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi, the police on Friday barricaded highways, made arrests of PPP leaders, activists and lawyers from most parts of the province.
In Gujranwala, police continued the crackdown on opposition parties, particularly the PPP, and arrested scores of activists, including district bar president Ilyas Rehan.
It is learnt that the local court had bailed out the bar president on Thursday, but the police raided his house and arrested him again.
Police barricaded the Upper Chenab river bridge at Wazirabad and did not allow public transport vehicles to reach Islamabad. However, scores of PPP activists succeeded in reaching Rawalpindi, but they were not allowed to enter the public meeting venue.
According to reports, main leaders of the opposition parties went into hiding while police were conducting continuous raids on their houses to arrest them.
KHANEWAL: The district police arrested a large number of activists and lawyers belonging to the PPP throughout the district.
Reports said that lawyers, including Jahanian Bar Association president Chaudhry Ziaullah, Haroon Rashid Nizami and Naeem Arshad, were rounded up in Jahanian.
Khanewal DBA president Chaudhry Hussain and other prominent lawyers have already gone underground since the imposition of emergency in the country.
Police also arrested PPP workers, including Haji Muhammad Iqbal, Hakeem Mukhtar Ahmad and Ishfaq Ahmad Kamboh from Abdul Hakim and PPP Khanewal city president Sheikh Irfan and his sons, Rehan and Zeeshan, from Khanewal.
Talking to Dawn from Islamabad, PPP district president and Punjab Bar Council member Javed Hashmi said that PPP leader and former tehsil nazim Nishat Ahmad Khan Daha was also detained by the police.
He said that lawyers would continue their protest against the arrests of political workers, lawyers and rights’ activists and imposition of emergency in the country.
SAHIWAL: Police apprehended another PPP activist, Mukhtar Sabir, here on Friday. Earlier, the police also rounded up PPP city president Ali Nawaz Bhatti.
Police continued raids on the houses of the PPP workers and leaders.
MIANWALI: Police sealed all the routes leading to Islamabad in a bid to stop PPP workers to converge at Liaquat Bagh Rawalpindi.
DPO Malik Abdul Aziz Khan along with a heavy police contingent monitored the operation throughout the day. Passenger buses, cars and even trucks were not allowed to move towards Rawalpindi on Mianwali-Talagang Road.
Long queues of vehicles, including trucks carrying crude oil, could be seen on the highway.
Helpless passengers coming from Karachi for their onward journey to northern parts of Punjab, the NWFP and Kashmir faced a great deal of inconvenience.
No newspaper from Islamabad could reach Mianwali because of the traffic blockade. The barriers on the highway were removed from the roads at about 4pm to let the vehicles to resume their operation.
TOBA TEK SINGH: A few activists and some former parliamentarians of the PPP succeeded to depart for Rawalpindi to attend the public meeting there.
While most of the party leaders and workers went into hiding to save themselves from arrests.
The district administration has so far not issued detention orders of 14 PPP activists who were arrested during a crackdown on Wednesday and Thursday.
A police official said that the PPP workers were detained in police stations at Kamalia, Pirmahal, Nawan Lahore and Gojra.
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.