Pak on the boil as lawyers rush to CJ’s aid

Pakistan witnessed widespread protests against President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday, the largest in the country's Punjab province since the 1971 war. Protestors, led mostly by lawyers, took to the streets against the dismissal of the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Bilal Minto, a Lahore-based lawyer, offers an eyewitness account of the dramatic events of Tuesday from inside the Supreme Court premises of Pakistan.

I went in early, around 10am, with two other lawyers who had petitioned the Supreme Court to produce the judge. Before 11am, when we came out of the building towards the gate to join the protests, the SC had shut its doors.

At first we saw about 500 people, which number increased over the course of the day. Most of them were lawyers. There were some citizens who had shown up out of solidarity as well as members of the security agencies.

The lawyers came from Punjab, NWFP, and from as far away as Karachi. Islamabad was laid siege to by the government so that many more lawyers, who were on the way, couldn’t get into the city! There were all kinds of rumours, that the judge and his family had been manhandled. To my utter surprise he came to the court around 1:30 and the public around his car took possession of him.

He was before the supreme judicial council until 4:30pm, accompanied by his lawyers. The council handed him a charge-sheet but not the accompanying documents. They ordered that his landlines and mobile be restored, and that he be free to meet whoever he pleases. However, by the evening, his lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, was telling TV that he was stopped from meeting him.

As told to Rehan Ansari