Hundreds of Bhutto supporters held

Punjab Chief Minister on Thursday said any move to go ahead with the rally would be “dealt with sternly”.

PPP leaders said police had launched a crackdown on party activists last night, shortly after Bhutto called for protests and said she would lead a “long march” from Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, to Islamabad if Musharraf did not lift Emergency and hold elections as scheduled in January.

As many as 300 PPP workers were arrested in Lahore and another 200 in Sialkot and Faisalabad, Dawn News channel quoted PPP leaders as saying. There were also reports of arrests in other parts of Punjab and across the country.

A defiant Bhutto said she would go ahead with the rally in Rawalpindi despite the ban and urged people and PPP workers to join the meeting “at all costs and under any circumstances”.

Since Emergency was imposed on November 3, hundreds of opposition workers, rights activists, lawyers and judges of superior courts have been detained or put under house arrest.

Among those placed under house arrest are sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and rights activist Asma Jahangir while cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has gone into hiding to evade detention.