M A I N   N E W S

Musharraf arrested, shifted to police HQ
Afzal Khan in Islamabad

General grilled A police team on Friday visited former President Pervez Musharraf's farmhouse, declared a "sub-jail" by the authorities, and questioned him about the detention of more than 60 judges in 2007. The five-member police team led by SP Sardar Sadaqat Ali Khan visited Musharraf's farmhouse at Chak Shahzad on the outskirts of Islamabad around 11 am. The team recorded Musharraf's statement and his response to charges levelled against him in the case that led to his arrest on Friday morning.

General (retd) Pervez Musharraf was shifted to the police headquarters in Islamabad from his farmhouse residence at Chak Shahzad on Friday, hours after the former military ruler surrendered to the authorities in the judges’ detention case.

Musharraf has been booked under the anti-terrorism law on an order from the Islamabad High Court, which had on Thursday ordered his arrest. Judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui took strong exception to Musharraf’s escape from the court after cancellation of his bail and held the police and security rangers responsible for whisking him away amid tight security.

The judge noted that Musharraf sacked over 60 judges and confined them in their houses after the imposition of emergency in November 2007. His action amounted to spreading terror and subverting the entire judicial system in the country, the judge observed while ordering that a case under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act be registered against him.

The authorities were contemplating placing Musharraf under house arrest by declaring his spacious farmhouse in Chak Shehzad by declaring it as ‘sub-jail’. But under the law, he must first surrender himself to the police, and be produced before a magistrate before being shifted to his house.

Musharraf was arrested by the police on Friday morning and driven to the police headquarters amid tight security.

Since the magistrate is preoccupied in a judicial conference, Musharraf will have to spend two more days in the headquarters before appearing in magistrate Abbas Khan’s court for declaration of the farmhouse as a sub-jail. The judge issued an order for a two-day-long transit remand of Musharraf. The order also added clause 780-A pertaining to terrorism in the list of charges against the former army strongman.

(With agency inputs)