ISLAMABAD, 2 November — Police yesterday detained the chief of the Pakistan Muslim League party early yesterday after he announced plans to join religious parties in a nationwide anti-US protest, officials said.
Javed Hashmi, acting president of the PML of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was taken into custody from the residence of Kulsoom Nawaz in the federal capital in the early hours yesterday, Interior Ministry officials said.
He is the first secular politician to be arrested since the government announced its decision to support the US-led war against terrorism, although several religious leaders have been detained.
Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi said Hashmi had been detained by the anti-corruption National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for alleged possession of assets which were beyond his means. He dismissed suggestions that the arrest was to muffle criticism of the military government. Hashmi was later produced in an anti-corruption court which remanded him to NAB custody for 14 days, the official Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
It said Hashmi, who had served as minister in the previous government has been accused of acquiring agriculture and residential properties "disproportionate to his known sources of income."
He also allegedly "misused his authority and made illegal appointments in his department," it said.
Hashmi denied the charges and told the court that the value of his properties were exaggerated.
Meanwhile, the PML accused the government of arresting its leader in a fit of anger after a decision to join protests over Islamabad’s support for US strikes on Afghanistan.
The PML said in a statement that Hashmi was arrested at midnight in his house after a party meeting decided to participate in a Nov. 9 general strike called by religious parties to protest against President Pervez Musharraf’s rule.
"Had the rulers any idea of the grave situation facing the country, they would have sought guidance from respected national leaders like Javed Hashmi instead of arresting him in a fit of rage," the party said in a statement issued by the PML in Islamabad.
Hashmi on Wednesday said his party would join a strike called by a coalition of religious parties agitating against Islamabad’s support for the US-led military strikes on the Taleban regime in Afghanistan.
His detention signals a hardening of the military government’s line against protests.
Gen. Musharraf told a high-level security meeting Wednesday that no one would be allowed to challenge the authority of the government and those making seditious statements would be prosecuted.
His words were seen as a direct threat to the religious party leaders who have called him a "criminal" and a "traitor" for siding with the United States instead of the Taleban regime.
