M A I N   N E W S

Several Pak Oppn leaders detained
K.J.M. Varma

Islamabad, September 23
Ahead of Pakistan's October 6 presidential poll in which Pervez Musharraf is seeking re-election, the police detained several top opposition leaders, as premier Shaukat Aziz threatened to extend by one year the tenure of assemblies if lawmakers resign in protest against the General’s second term.

Several leaders of the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), headed by exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) party, were detained late last night as they planned to stage a demonstration outside the Supreme Court building here tomorrow against Musharraf's bid to contest election in uniform.

Those detained included PML-N president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, party MP Tehmina Daultana and senior leader of the Islamic alliance Muthahida Majlis Amal (MMA) Hafiz Hussain Ahmed. They were served the detention orders at their apartments in Parliament Lodges here, officials said. Mohammad Aslam, another MMA member of National Assembly, lower house of Parliament, was picked up from his residence and taken to the Adiyala jail.

A police party raided the house of MMA president Qazi Hussain Ahmed, but failed to arrest him, as he had already left the place, Dawn reported. Another police team tried to arrest Syed Mohammad Bilal, chief of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Islamabad.

Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema (retd), an interior ministry spokesman, confirmed that the police raid took place, saying the government had taken the step to maintain law and order. — PTI

‘Mush begged for Kargil ceasefire’

New Delhi, September 23
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has claimed that he called for a ceasefire to end the Kargil war in 1999 after army chief Pervez Musharraf “begged” him to do so.

Sharif, in an interview for a book ,‘Gaddar Kaun’, also scoffed at the “pull-out” by the Pakistani troops from Kargil, saying they had “lost everything.” He admitted Pakistan made a “request” to militants to withdraw from Kargil only to “show to the world” that Pakistani troops had not occupied the icy heights in J&K.

“The fact is that when Musharraf ’s misadventure failed miserably, this commando general came to me to get the war ceased at any cost,” Sharif said. The former premier said that US Gen Anthony Zinni’s book “verifies this claim of mine”. “His testimony clearly says that it was the army chief and not the Prime Minister, who wanted the ceasefire,” Sharif said.

Sharif refuted Musharraf’s claims that international pressure over Kargil had demoralised him. “It is an interesting claim ... I was not demoralised by the international pressure.... first, he begged me for a ceasefire and then bade me farewell at the Chaklala Airport for Washington,” the then premier said. —  PTI