Imran Arrested!

[Awesome]

In a shocking turn of events Imran was apprehended not by the police, but by the very students amongst whom he was trying to stir a rebellion.

He was at Punjab Uni where he made a surprise appearance during a general student protest against the emergency. He was lifted up on shoulders n stuff. Then when he was noticed the student union caught him, handled him roughly, locked him up.

Then he was put in a van and taken to the police.

There goes the hope of Imran Khan. I'm thinking he'd resign from politics after this incident. He's like shouting over there "Main koi apne liay thori aya hoon, main toh inke liay aya hoon, inke mustaqbil k liay, inke bachon k liay". It was funny at first, but then you wouldn't wish something like that on your worst enemy.

 

[Neo]

Pakistan's Khan charged under anti-terror laws ​

by Rana Jawad

LAHORE, Pakistan (AFP) - Police in Pakistan arrested cricket legend Imran Khan and later charged him under anti-terrorism laws after he emerged from hiding to join a student protest Wednesday.

He was picked up as former premier Benazir Bhutto hammered the phones from under house arrest in an attempt to forge a united opposition front against a state of emergency imposed by President Pervez Musharraf.

She told AFP she would call Nawaz Sharif, another ex-premier, to ask him to form an alliance uniting two of Pakistan's biggest opposition parties.

"The aim... will be to form a common front, to formulate a joint strategy for saving democracy," she said by telephone from an aide's house where she is being kept under house arrest.

Bhutto has spoken to nine other leading political opponents of Musharraf in the past two days, a senior aide in her party told AFP.

One of them was Khan, who appeared in public at a university campus in the eastern city of Lahore for the first time since he slipped out of detention last week.

Amid chaotic scenes, he was lifted onto the shoulders of demonstrators but quickly seized by a crowd of radicals then pushed into a nearby building. He was later bundled into a white van and handed over to police.

"A case has been registered against Imran Khan. He has been charged under the anti-terrorism act," local police officer Naveed Arshad told AFP.

Lahore police chief Malik Mohammad Iqbal earlier said that the former cricket star would be charged partly because he was "spreading hatred."

"Through his speeches he has been inciting people to pick up arms, he has been calling for civil disobedience, he was spreading hatred," Iqbal told AFP.

Khan, who led Pakistan to cricket World Cup glory in 1992, founded a small but vocal opposition party and called for Musharraf to be hanged for treason after the military ruler imposed emergency rule on November 3.

"I came to the university to lead a rally of students against the dictator Musharraf and his illegal actions," he told AFP as he was whisked away.

"I have achieved my purpose. I have started the student movement."

Bhutto remained under house arrest in Lahore to prevent her leading a mass procession against emergency rule, after earlier calling on Musharraf to quit and vowing never to serve under him in government.

A senior security official in Lahore said Bhutto's house arrest was likely to continue at least until Thursday. Hundreds of police were still outside her house, which is surrounded by barbed wire.

She and the other opposition leaders are planning to stage an all-parties conference later this month to decide on a joint strategy which would include restoring the constitution suspended by Musharraf.

The military ruler has promised general elections by January 9 -- although still under the state of emergency -- and vowed Wednesday not to resign until the political turmoil was over.

Interviewed on Britain's Sky News television, he defended his decision to impose emergency rule.

"The day when there is no turmoil in Pakistan, I will step down," he said. "I am not a dictator, I want a democracy."

Washington, which views Musharraf as a key ally in its "war on terror," is dispatching John Negroponte, the deputy to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to Islamabad this week to urge an end to the emergency.

"In order to have free and fair elections, they need to be done without a state of emergency in place," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

"It would be hard to imagine having free and fair elections under a state of emergency."

Pakistan's election commission met Wednesday to study a date for the vote, but a spokesman said there would be no announcement until after November 20.

Meanwhile the Swiss government said it was temporarily suspending weapons exports to Pakistan in light of the crisis.

Pakistan is still awaiting delivery of some 15 anti-aircraft batteries and ammunition from Switzerland out of an initial order of 21 such systems.

Pakistan's Khan charged under anti-terror laws - Yahoo! News

 

[HAIDER]

LAHORE, Nov 14: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf chairman Imran Khan was arrested from outside the Punjab University’s new campus on Wednesday after he had been manhandled and detained in the campus allegedly by activists of the Islami Jamiat Talaba.

Imran Khan had gone to the university at the invitation of a joint action committee of students. The visit had been approved by Qazi Hussain Ahmed, chief of Jamaat-i-Islami, to which the IJT is affiliated.

The police booked Imran under section 124, 353, 149, 186, 148 of the Pakistan Penal Code, Section 16 of the Maintenance of Public Order and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. Imran was first taken to the Iqbal Town police station and later moved to the Sabzazar police station, and again to the Civil Lines police station.

On his arrival at the campus, the PTI chief was confronted reportedly by a group of IJT activists who kicked him around and punched him. They took him to a room in the Centre for High Energy Physics and detained him there for about 45 minutes.

A cameraman of a private television channel who managed to get inside the building and a teacher said the students had maltreated Imran also in the room.

They quoted the PTI leader as saying that he had come to the university at the invitation of students to join them in a protest. The assailants bundled Imran into a wagon with white curtains and later handed him over to police waiting outside.

JI information secretary Amirul Azim, who was present when all this was happening, condemned the action of IJT activists and said that they had discredited the party in front of the international media and harmed the joint cause. Punjab University IJT nazim Mohammad Ayub alleged that Imran Khan had been manhandled by the university administration and that his party was not involved in either detaining him or handing him over to police.

At the same time, he and other IJT activists denied that they had invited the PTI chief to the university. “We do not want any politician to hijack the movement of students against the imposition of emergency and they should keep away from the campus,” they told reporters.

University registrar Dr Mohammad Naeem Khan said the university administration had not helped police in arresting Imran Khan. “We had given him a free passage.”

PTI secretary-general Shahid Zulfikar and other leaders blamed IJT activists for the incident.

Addressing a news conference at the Lahore Press Club, they held the entire JI leadership responsible for what had happened to their leader.

“The JI leaders should have informed us if they had any doubts about the students’ intentions. But they did not do so although we contacted them after the IJT had issued press releases opposing Mr Khan’s visit.”

Punjab PTI leaders Saloni Bukhari, Naseem Zahra and Talat Naqvi, who had accompanied Imran Khan to the campus, claimed that he had been detained by plainclothesmen and after he was driven out in “a joint operation by agencies and IJT activists”.

The PTI chief who was reported to have been hiding in the campus since early morning, had appeared suddenly in front of the CHEP building at around 12.30pm and a group of students, mainly from the university’s Law and Hailey colleges, warmly welcomed him and raised slogans in his favour.

Two students lifted him on their shoulders, but soon another group of students came there and pushed the two students to the ground. They took hold of Imran and dragged him into the building.

A few fire-crackers were exploded to scare away students who had started gathering outside the building where he had been detained.
JI students’ wing hands over Imran to police -DAWN - Top Stories; November 15, 2007