ISLAMABAD, 16 March 2007 — Pakistan’s acting top judge has summoned the Islamabad police chief and other officers for allegedly “manhandling” the country’s suspended chief justice, a spokesman said yesterday.
Television footage showed police officers apparently restraining Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry when he tried to walk to the Supreme Court following his removal on Friday by President Pervez Musharraf.
He later made his way by car to the court, where he was due to appear before a judicial council on unspecified charges of misconduct and abusing his position. The hearing will resume today.
A spokesman for the Supreme Court in Islamabad said Chaudhry’s acting replacement, Javed Iqbal, had decided to summon the top police officers over the reported incident.
“The inspector general, deputy inspector general, senior superintendent police and deputy superintendent of police will appear before the Supreme Court on March 19 to explain their position,” the spokesman said.
Musharraf’s attempts to remove Chaudhry sparked protests and a three-day strike by lawyers across the country. Further unrest is expected today when Chaudhry appears back at the Supreme Court.
Police in pre-dawn raids yesterday detained some two dozen political workers in the eastern city of Lahore, ahead of a protest planned by the opposition.
“We have detained 24 individuals after intelligence reports that they posed a threat to the peace and security in the city,” a senior Lahore police officer told AFP.
Major political parties, including those of former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif as well as an alliance of six religious parties, have joined hands to stage rallies after Friday prayers.
“It is our right to protest the suspension and subsequent manhandling of the chief justice and we will go ahead with our protest despite police threats,” Ameerul Azeem, a spokesman for the Muttaheda Majlis-e-Amal alliance, told AFP. More than 20 lawyers were injured on Monday when police used batons to break up their rally in Lahore.
US Urges Caution
A senior US official said yesterday that a row over President Musharraf’s move to sack the country’s top judge was “sensitive” and needed to be handled carefully.
“We understand the sensitivity of actions involving the judiciary,” US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher said after holding talks with Musharraf.
“It’s a sensitive matter and obviously needs to be handled carefully, but it’s something that needs to be handled by the Pakistanis in their own way,” he told reporters at the US Embassy in Islamabad.
Boucher, whom officials said was making the first official US comment on the matter, said the issue had come up in a “variety of meetings” here but that it had to “work itself through the Pakistani system.”
