FORMER PAKISTAN PRIME MINISTER BENAZIR BHUTTO ARRESTED WHEN SHE ATTEMPTED TO ESCAPE PAKISTAN NEWS REPORTS
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN NEWS STORIES: - The former Pakistan Prime Minister and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Mrs Benazir Bhutto was formally arrested when she attempted to escapt the police guarding her residence on Friday when she was trying to attend the Protest rally at Rawalpindi in Pakistan. "She had attempted to escape with her secretary Naheed Khan but was spotted by some policemen and was again sent back to her residence," a police official told reporters, adding that now she had been "formally arrested".
Pakistan top officials said that she has been served with arrest warrant and she would remain under police custody as long as she is seen as a threat to the good law and order in the country. "She has been arrested under 16MPO for disturbing law and order." But, her spokesperson Sherry Rehman said that the Pakistan Peoples Party PPP leader would make all out attempts to reach Liaqat Bagh in Rawalpindi where hundreds of thousands of people were waiting for her as she claims. Pakistan Peoples Party PPP leader Bhutto said she would make every effort to reach Liaqat Bagh to address the public rally. "I know people have come from far away places and they are waiting for me. I know I will be at Liaqat Bagh again, my people are waiting... let them do whatever they like," she said, adding that hundreds of policemen were present outside her home. She narrated her 1992 address in Liaqat Bagh when every effort was made by the then Nawaz Sharif government to stop her from reaching the venue, but how she still managed to reach it by riding a motorbike and travelling through the narrow streets to Rawalpindi. But the local administration in Rawalpindi is ensuring that all roads leading to the protest venue are blocked with heavy containers and barbed wires. Speaking over phone, the Pakistan Peoples Party PPP leader Bhutto had said that she has rejected President General Pervez Musharraf's announcement to hold elections by Feb 15. "Elections are due by Jan 15 and should be held by this date." Pakistan Peoples Party Bhutto last month had announced she would address a public meeting in Rawalpindi on Nov 9, but following the imposition of emergency by Musharraf she turned the election rally into a protest rally. The local administrator or Nazim Raja Ikhlas Ahmed said that a rally in such a situation could not be allowed.
