Tension rises in Pakistan after Nawaz Sharif defies house arrest to join 'long march'

Mr Sharif, a former Prime Minister, was placed under house arrest for three days in his hometown of Lahore yesterday, along with several other leaders of the march, which was due to culminate with a sit-in in front of the national parliament today. He broke through police barricades, however, and was in a convoy of 200 vehicles last night heading towards Islamabad, where he planned to join thousands of supporters and lawyers.

“Our destiny is Islamabad,” he told a television channel from inside his bullet-proof vehicle as it crawled through Lahore, surrounded by several thousand cheering supporters. “The response from the people is amazing. It is a golden moment in Pakistan’s history. It is a prelude to a revolution.”

Imran Khan, the cricket captain turned politician, who has been in hiding for the past few days, also vowed to bring thousands of people to today’s rally. “We will defeat the Government with people’s power,” he said.

The police in Punjab appeared to have abandoned their posts after detaining several of Mr Sharif’s supporters and firing teargas at lawyers in central Lahore earlier in the day. That raised questions over whether Mr Zardari would be able to stop Mr Sharif with the police and paramilitary forces, or would be forced to call in the army.

The United States, Britain and other Western governments, as well as many Pakistanis, fear that that could lead to a return to military rule in the nuclear-armed nation, which has been governed by the army for more than half of its 61-year history. US and British officials are also concerned that it could distract the army from fighting al-Qaeda and Taleban militants sheltering in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas, near the Afghan border.

Suspected militants attacked a transport terminal in northwestern Pakistan used to supply Nato and US forces in Afghanistan yesterday, setting fire to dozens of containers and military vehicles, in the latest in a series of similar attacks. Pakistan’s army says that it has been forced to bring reenforcements to Islamabad from northwestern Pakistan after the Government placed it on standby to protect sensitive areas in the capital and to back up police and paramilitary forces. “It may affect our fight against terrorists, but we don’t have any choice,” Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, had told reporters in Islamabad.


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