(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - As thousands of Pakistani lawyers and political activists clashed with security forces in their bid to march to the capital, Islamabad, many political leaders went into hiding on Thursday to avoid arrest."We're outta here!"
Police have arrested hundreds of lawyers, political workers and other opponents in the past few days in a crackdown designed to avert the long march calling for the reinstatement of deposed judges.
Former international cricketer turned politician Imran Khan emerged from hiding briefly and announced he would appear outside Islamabad's district court on Monday to lead the political protest in central Islamabad. "I did not escape. In fact, this is a strategy to avoid arrest. I shall definitely appear at the district court on 16 March and lead the procession all the way to the Constitution Avenue (in) Islamabad," the former cricket champion Imran Khan told a local television talk show from an undisclosed location. "I cannot describe where I am based because this is what the government wants to know."
Defying the nationwide crackdown and protest ban, lawyers and political activists congregated at the Sindh High Court in Karachi - site of the largest rally of the country - and began to march.
The protests carried flags and punched their fists in the air as they marched in Karachi, Quetta and Lahore, demanding that president Asif Ali Zardari reinstate judges sacked by former president Pervez Musharraf.
The protesters managed to reach the highway in buses and cars but were met by large numbers of police who charged at them with batons.
Dozens of protesters were arrested in Karachi including the deputy chief of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami Party, 90-year-old Professor Ghaffour Ahmad and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association and leader of the lawyers' movement, Munir A. Malik.
Pakistan's television channels channels appeared to be supporting the protest. On Thursday they were broadcasting the address of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in which she announced that deposed Supreme Court justice Iftikhar Chaudry would be restored to power if she was elected. They also showed old footage of Zardari in which he signed a deal with Nawaz Sharif, opposition leader and head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N to restore Chaudhry.
Revolutionary poetry written by a late communist poet Habib Jalib is also being broadcast by television stations.