Thaindian News

Islamabad, March 15 (IANS) Orders were passed for a three-day house arrest of former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif and other opposition leaders Sunday after he rejected President Asif Ali Zardari’s olive branch and vowed to continue with the lawyers’ stir.
Punjab Police also placed under house arrest Jamat-e-Islami (JI) chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed and the leader of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf Imran Khan, Geo News reported.

According to informed sources, overnight orders included names of other political leaders like Shahbaz Sharif, Hamza Shahbaz, Zulfiqar Khosa, Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Liaquat Baloch.

Police sources said that the concerned politicians have been apprised of the orders regarding their house arrest. Heavy police troops have also been deployed outside their houses, Geo reported.

Nawaz Sharif late Saturday rejected Zardari’s offer on seeking a review of a Supreme Court verdict barring him and his brother from contesting elections, saying a lawyers’ stir for reinstating the judges sacked in 2007 would go ahead nonetheless.

“I am declaring here that come what may, the lawyers’ long march will continue to Islamabad,” he said at a rally in Lahore Saturday night, even as the government earlier in the day asked the army to remain on standby to prevent the protesters from entering the federal capital.

In a major climbdown to end the lawyers’ protest, the Pakistani government had said it would appeal against the Supreme Court ruling on the Sharif brothers and also take steps to reinstate the judges then president Pervez Musharraf sacked after declaring an emergency in November 2007.

Zardari’s reneging on the agreement had prompted Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to walk out of the coalition led by the president’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) formed after the February 2008 general elections.