More than a dozen armed men stormed into the house of relatives of ftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in the southwestern city of Quetta and harassed them.
QUETTA: More than a dozen armed men stormed into the house of relatives of Pakistan's suspended chief justice in the southwestern city of Quetta and harassed them, the family said on Sunday.
President General Pervez Musharraf suspended chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on March 9 on misconduct charges, sparking the biggest crisis of the military ruler's eight years in power.
Unidentified gunmen barged into the upmarket Quetta residence of Chaudhry's nephew Rana Amir on Saturday night apparently looking to target him, but he saved himself by hiding in a dark corner.
"About 12 to 15 armed men broke into my house Saturday night after tying the guard with ropes and they asked my mother at gunpoint about me," Amir, who is also a lawyer himself, said.
"They were definitely not robbers as they did not take anything away from the house, but left a Kalashnikov rifle instead while fleeing," Amir said.
"I saved myself by hiding in a bathroom in a portion of house where electricity was not working," Amir said, adding that he feared that "had they found me, they would have killed me."
Amir said they "appeared to be intelligence agencies men who kept on harassing my family".
Police were investigating the incident.
"We have recorded the statements of the residents and registered a case against unknown people," senior police official Rahu Khan Brohi said.
In a previous incident Syed Hamad Raza, a deputy registrar at the Supreme Court and personal assistant to Chaudhry, was killed by gunmen who broke into his house in Islamabad on May 14. Police said it had arrested six robbers.
However, the 37-year-old's family described the shooting as a targeted assassination and lawyers for Chaudhry have said he was eliminated because of his connections with the chief justice.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}