KARACHI, 2 May— Police and paramilitary forces battled with the activists of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) across the port city to prevent them from reaching the city center where the rally was to be held in the guise of celebrating May Day.
Witnesses said the fiercest clash took place in the western Orangi district where police used batons and tear gas shells to disperse a crowd.
A massive security blanket was thrown over the city as police and paramilitary forces arrested hundreds of political activists to foil bids to stage the rally.
City residents said an undeclared curfew had been imposed and central Karachi appeared to be under siege as thousands of security personnel were deployed to block the rally organized by the 16-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD).
Leaders and opposition party activists, after their failure to hold the rally, courted arrests on a massive scale in Karachi. Throughout the day, they engaged the police in a game of hide-and-seek.
They came out in small groups from different parts of the city raising slogans and trying to march toward the rally venue at Nishtar Park.
“We are trying to start (marching)...but obviously every place is a jail, they will nab us anywhere we start from,” said Nisar Khuhro, Sindh provincial chief of self-exiled former Premier Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), a key member of the ARD.
Khuhro and around 150 PPP supporters staged the largest march of the day when they caught the police by surprise and gathered in the city’s upmarket Clifton area, but they were soon arrested.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto denounced the use of brute force by the authorities to prevent the leaders and workers of PPP and other parties from converging at the May Day rally venue.
The ARD, the target of mass arrests since last week, vowed to defy a ban imposed by Gen. Pervez Musharraf to rally and demand the army stand down and restore civilian rule. By mid-afternoon, Reuters reporters had seen the arrest of around 250 political activists — including senior politicians — as mostly small groups emerged from the shadows to chant slogans.
Sources within the main political parties put the figure much higher, saying around 600 people had been arrested in addition to the more than 2,000 netted in a military roundup since last week. Ajaz Durrani, a PPP spokesman, said people had been arrested at Karachi airport, the railway station and on the national highway leading into the city.
“Hundreds of people have been arrested when they arrived in Karachi to join the rally,” he said.
There were no reports of violence in Karachi, but police in Banaras Chowk, 15 km west of the city, said they had fired tear gas when more than 50 supporters of the Awami National Party, an ARD member, threw stones and rocks.
The ARD, which also includes archrivals the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of the ousted former Premier Nawaz Sharif and the PPP, says the roundup of its workers and leaders spread nationwide.
Reports from other cities in Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, said ARD activists had been detained, while authorities in the central city of Lahore in Punjab province also prevented people traveling to join the rally.
One witness at Karachi’s Empress Market said about 200 armed police forced shopkeepers and market stallholders to close their businesses, while a helicopter circled overhead.
“Today is a total undeclared curfew in Karachi with police harassment in public places,” Munawar Hussain Suharwardy of the PPP told Reuters.
Karachi’s normally bustling streets were quieter than usual with large areas were barricaded with all access barred.
A dusty Nishtar Park, the original rally venue, was completely sealed off with water tankers and buses blocking surrounding streets and hundreds of police standing ready.
Convoys of police trucks patrolled nearby, while in other parts of the city groups of armed security personnel were stationed at street corners and police mounted on horseback plodded down main thoroughfares.
Musharraf on Monday told politicians to stay at home. “Once we have said there will be no political activity, there will be no political activity,” he told a convention in Islamabad. “Those who are useless politicians should stay at home. We will not tolerate any instability,” Musharraf said.
Ejaz Shafi, a senior ARD official and a member of the suspended National Assembly, said 25,000 security personnel had been deployed across Karachi and the PML had decided to change the venue and attempt to rally at Empress Market.
