FAISALABAD/ISLAMABAD, 18 June 2007 — Thousands of Pakistanis braved rains here yesterday to cheer the country’s suspended top judge.
About 5,000 lawyers and opposition party activists camped out through the night to greet Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry as he arrived in the eastern city of Faisalabad, completing a two-day journey from the capital Islamabad.
In a speech to the cheering crowd, Chaudhry avoided direct criticism of Musharraf, but made another impassioned plea for judicial independence and urged his supporters to keep up their campaign.
“The organs of the state cannot function properly unless there is separation of powers as enshrined in the constitution,” he said.
“Division of powers as envisaged in the constitution, preserving institutions — judiciary, executive, free media and legislative assemblies — and easy access to justice can alone ensure the survival and sustainability of the state,” Chaudhry said.
“You have struggled for the supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law for the past three months and you should remain united and shun your petty differences for this greater cause. A society can only be successful when there is supremacy of the constitution,” Chaudhry said, citing several cases in which he had helped the country’s poor to get justice through the courts.
The trip is the latest in a series of processions undertaken by the judge since Musharraf suspended him on March 9 on misconduct charges. “The struggle will continue until we have an independent judiciary,” Chaudhry’s supporters shouted as his motorcade arrived early yesterday in Faisalabad, to the tune of beating drums and booming firecrackers.
Nearly 60,000 people turned out to support Chaudhry during his 290-kilometer journey from Islamabad to this central industrial city, waving flags and showering him with rose petals during the 22-hour trip.
Chaudhry’s nephew Rana Amir told AFP that more than a dozen armed men barged into his residence in southwestern Quetta city Saturday night and “harassed” the family on not finding him. Police were investigating.
“I saved myself by hiding in a bathroom in a portion of house where electricity was not working,” Amir said, adding that he feared that “had they found me, they would have killed me.”
“They were definitely not robbers as they did not take anything away from the house, but left a Kalashnikov rifle instead while fleeing,” Amir said.
Amir said they “appeared to be intelligence agencies men who kept on harassing my family.” Police were investigating the incident.
“We have recorded the statements of the residents and registered a case against unknown people,” senior police official Rahu Khan Brohi told AFP. In a crackdown ahead of Chaudhry’s Faisalabad trip, police arrested about 300 opposition party activists.
The Pakistan People’s Party of former Premier Benazir Bhutto said one of its workers had died in custody.
