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| Pak keeps boiling, army mounted in Islamabad | | | Agencies
Islamabad, Mar 14: In the wake of the Long March called by former Pakistan Prime Minister and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif Pakistan today ordered troops to be deployed at sensitive areas in the capital as the threat by the opposition to go for a mass sit-in outside the Parliament neared.
The chief secretary is currently in talks with the Brigadier of the 111 brigade but the army said the deployment would take place "only if the situation warrants."
The army said it had received a request from the government to deploy troops at sensitive locations to maintain law and order during the protest by lawyers and opposition parties.
The troops will remain on alert and will "move only if the situation warrants it", chief military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told a private news channel.
He refused to identify the sensitive locations.
The lawyers' movement and opposition parties, including former premier Nawaz Sharif's PML-N, launched a "long march" on March 12 to pressure the ruling Pakistan People's Party to reinstate judges deposed by former President Pervez Musharraf.
The organisers of the protest have said it will end with a sit-in near parliament but the government has said it will not let the demonstrators enter Islamabad.
The army's Rawalpindi-based 111 Brigade, which has usually played a crucial role in past military coups, held a meeting on Thursday to review the law and order situation in the capital and nearby areas.
Lawyers and opposition have said the authorities have detained over 1,200 people to thwart the protest.
Prohibitory orders banning protests and rallies have been imposed in Sindh, Punjab and North West Frontier Province but the protestors have said they are determined to march to the capital.
The authorities have sealed all highways leading to the capital and have forced halt to three big opposition motorcades converging towards Islamabad.
Earlier, Pakistan police erected a tight cordon to block lawyers and activists who defied a ban on protests, vowing to march as part of a mass anti-government rally.
Lawyers and opposition political activists nationwide planned to march on the capital by Monday to press embattled President Asif Ali Zardari to reinstate judges sacked by ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf.
In response, the authorities have outlawed demonstrations in Islamabad and three provinces, and detained hundreds of activists in the worst such crackdown since Zardari replaced Musharraf last September.
Zardari's government, which is facing its worst crisis over the protests, has been locked in consultations trying to find a compromise deal to defuse a tense standoff with the main opposition leader Nawaz Sharif.
Some 150 workers of former Prime Minister Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) rallied in the Punjab city of Multan on Saturday, from where they were scheduled to march on the capital.
"We will go with lawyers to Islamabad by any means possible," Maimoona Hashmi, an MP for the party, told reporters.
Sharif is demanding that Zardari reinstate judges and end central rule in Punjab, a PML-N stronghold and Pakistan's most populous -- and therefore most politically important -- province.
Police said they would enforce a ban on protests and rallies.
"We have to stop the lawyers and others because they are violating the law," senior police official Karamat Ali said.
As lawyers in black suits and political activists marched down a main road outside the Multan high court, waving flags and punching the air, police said they had sealed off all exit routes from the city.
"Police have blocked all roads, but we will go to Islamabad in small groups (or) one by one," bar association general secretary Rana Naveed Akhtar said.
Multan police chief Saud Aziz said 95 people had been arrested this week since the ban on rallies was enforced. |
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