(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Hundreds of lawyers and political activists on Thursday staged angry protests across Pakistan calling for the reinstatement of all the judges sacked by former president Pervez Musharraf.The lawyers' protests took place in major cities including Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore, and underline the precarious state of Pakistan's embattled government.
One of the main coalition partners, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz led by Nawaz Sharif withdrew from the coalition on Monday over the government's failure to restore the sacked judges.
Apparently on the verge of collapse, the government is fighting an increasingly desperate battle with militants in the lawless northwest provinces amid a nationwide economic meltdown.
An angry mob destroyed posters bearing photos of the ruling Pakistan People's Party leader Asif Ali Zardari, widower of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto. They also torched billboards and shouted slogans against him. Some carried black flags as they blocked key roads for two hours in the capital, Islamabad.
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Zardari's accounts were frozen in 1997 at the request of Pakistani authorities probing allegations that he had received bribes while he was a government official and Bhutto was Prime Minister. "Asif should review his decision to side with the establishment and Washington, otherwise he will be a hate figure in Pakistan, as Musharraf was a few days ago," a lawyer and leader of the Pakistan Muslim League party Syed Hafizuddin told AKI.