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Islamabad: Tens of thousands of lawyers and political workers dispersed peacefully early on Friday after an all-night rally near the parliament in Islamabad following a long march to mount pressure for the reinstatement of the judges deposed last year by President Pervez Musharraf.
The massive crowd continued to shout "Go Musharraf Go" while the beleaguered president's arch foe, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, vowed in a fiery speech that the person who sacked and detained judges and subverted the constitution would be held to account for his deeds.
Sharif, whose Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) fully participated in the long march despite being part of the ruling coalition led by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), said Musharraf had not respected the verdict given by the people in February elections and continued to cling to the presidency instead of making a dignified exit.
"Now he cannot be given any safe exit as people want not only his impeachment but also full accountability over all his misdeeds during the past eight and a half years," the PML-N leader said.
Fire bombs
Referring to the Red Mosque military operation in July last year in Islamabad, Sharif said the "innocent students" of the seminary were demanding "safe passage" but the dictator burned them with fire bombs. Now the perpetrator of that action would also not get a safe passage, he added.
Many in the crowd shouted "hanging, hanging" when Sharif said that politicians had been hanged or exiled but dictators who broke the country, surrendered to the enemy and trampled upon the constitution were not taken to task.
It was the largest ever rally in the capital and its peaceful conclusion amid stringent security measures delighted the PPP government, which maintained its stance that the judges issue would be decided in the parliament.
The lawyer leaders came under pressure from the crowd to announce an indefinite mass sit-in outside the parliament till the judges' restoration, but they tactfully sidestepped the demand and said the future line of action would be decided later.
Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, the main leader of the lawyer community, said the effort had all along been to hold a peaceful march so that they could organise another such rally if the judges were not reinstated. He said the march was a resounding success.
Earlier, Sharif in his address to the gathering also said that a decision for a mass sit-in at the parliament would have to be taken collectively by the lawyers and political parties after taking into account all pros and cons.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's adviser on interior Rahman Malik said the judges' issue would be brought before the parliament after its current budget session.
Malik said a mechanism for the resolution of the judges would be worked out in the parliament, adding that there were some differences between the PPP and its major coalition partner, PML-N, on how the objective should be achieved in a way that no constitutional crisis is created.
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