M A I N   N E W S

Jamaat-i-Islami chief arrested

Lahore, April 21
The leader of Pakistan’s main fundamentalist party was arrested today during an outlawed march against Gen Pervez Musharraf’s referendum on extending his presidency, party spokesmen and witnesses said.

The police bundled Jamaat chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad into a waiting van when he came out of the party headquarters in the eastern city of Lahore to lead a march by hundreds of Jamaat-i-Islami supporters, they said.

Speaking to a crowd of some 500 persons, Ahmad, whose party is considered the most organised Islamic faction in the country, lashed out at government policies.

“Our arrest is a defeat for General Musharraf,” he told the noisy crowd.

“I appeal to you to please disperse peacefully because we are not in confrontation with the police, our struggle is against those who have usurped power,” he said.

The police earlier seized Jamaat’s vice-president Liaquat Baluch in an overnight raid on his Lahore home.

The Jamaat has already challenged the April 30 referendum in the Supreme Court and its boycott call has been echoed by the main alliance of opposition political parties.

Meanwhile, a report from Islamabad said after failing to split the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), General Musharraf had enlisted “support of criminal and corrupt politicians to foil major political parties’ plan to ensure boycott and to get a massive mandate in the coming referendum”.

“General Musharraf has now embarked upon the policy of reaching out to political characters, who are not well-reputed. Some politicians and bureaucrats imprisoned on charges of corruption have already announced their support to him in the upcoming referendum,’’ The Friday Times reported. AFP, UNI