|
Islamabad: Pakistan's deposed top judge, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, got a hero's welcome in his hometown of Quetta on the first in a series of planned trips across Pakistan to crank up support for the reinstatement of judges ousted by US-backed President Pervez Musharraf.
Chaudhry and dozens of his colleagues, seen as hostile to former army chief Musharraf's re-election as president in October, were dismissed in early November when Musharraf imposed a six-week period of emergency rule.
They were freed from nearly five months of house arrest last week on the orders of new Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.
Speaking to reporters as he got off a flight from the capital, Islamabad, Chaudhry said, "I'm happy coming home after 18 months. Quetta is my home town."
About 500 political activists waving party flags and black-suited lawyers thronged Quetta's small airport shouting "long live the chief justice" and "Go Musharraf, go".
Supporters hope the independent-minded judge can tap the same wave of public sympathy as when tens of thousands turned out to hear him address bar councils across the country after Musharraf first attempted to sack him last spring.
|
