Authorities arrested at least 60 more people yesterday as they extended a nationwide crackdown aimed at thwarting opposition activists’ plans to march on Pakistan’s capital and surround the country’s parliament.
Police rounded up around 300 political activists on Wednesday from cities around the country and banned rallies in two provinces.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador Anne Patterson met with top opposition leader Nawaz Sharif in a bid to resolve the political crisis, a Sharif spokesman said.
PHOTO: AFP
The showdown threatens to destabilize the one-year-old democratically elected government amid rising Western concerns that the country could lose the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants along the Afghan border.
The crackdown reminded many Pakistanis of moves against many of the same activists by former president Pervez Musharraf in 2007 — clampdowns that reduced his popularity, ushered in the new government and contributed to his ouster the following year.
Sharif spokesman Sadiqul Farooq said Patterson was “trying to get things resolved” between Sharif and the government.
“It is not only the American ambassador — other friendly countries are in contact,’’ he said.
The US embassy said it would not comment on the ambassador’s meetings, but foreign help in resolving political disputes in Pakistan has been common in the past.
Sharif and the lawyers movement are demanding that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari fulfill a pledge to restore independent-minded judges removed in 2007 by Musharraf, whom some believe could be hostile to Zardari.
Sharif, a former prime minister, is also furious over a Supreme Court decision barring him and his brother from elected office.
After the ruling, the federal government dismissed the Punjab provincial administration led by Sharif’s brother.
The lawyers, Sharif’s party and other small groupings plan to converge on the parliament building in Islamabad on Monday from cities across the country and remain there until their demands are met.
The government is trying to stop them from leaving their home cities.
As protesters gathered to leave on Wednesday and yesterday, police arrested around 60 activists in Karachi and outside the southern city’s high court. Brief scuffles broke out between police and protesters, witnesses and city police chief Waseem Ahmad said.
Opposition leaders and lawyers were defiant.
“Our long march will go ahead according to the schedule,” said Naeem Qureshi, a prominent lawyer in Karachi.
He and other lawyers were scheduled to leave for Islamabad later yesterday in a motor convoy.
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