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Thousands protest Musharraf
Police line the march's route in Karachi, but don't try to stop the demonstration.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 27, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Thousands of opponents staged their biggest demonstrations yet against President Pervez Musharraf on Monday, marching in several major cities to protest his removal of Pakistan's top judge. The protests were a significant display by opposition parties that rarely take to the streets en masse, though the turnout was modest for a nation of about 160-million people and did not seem likely to immediately shake Musharraf's eight-year rule. Musharraf provoked his worst political crisis when he suspended Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry on March 9 for unspecified charges of abusing his authority. Opposition political groups and lawyers have accused Musharraf, an army general who seized power in 1999, of trying to entrench his military rule. Musharraf has insisted Chaudhry's suspension was not politically motivated. About 3,000 people chanting "Go, Musharraf, go!" and "Friends of America are traitors to the nation!" marched through a commercial district of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city. Police lined the route but did not intervene. "Musharraf has to go now. He must resign and let elections be held under a caretaker government," Raza Rabbani, a senior lawmaker for the Pakistan Peoples Party, told the crowd in Karachi. Opposition leaders said police arrested hundreds in the eastern Lahore area over the weekend, and police initially declared the protest illegal. On Monday, however, security forces stood aside as 2,000 people marched in Lahore. 2 militants, 1 police officer killed in school gunfight TANK, Pakistan - Police killed two suspected militant recruiters in a gunbattle at a boys school Monday after hearing they were trying to sign up students for suicide bombings and holy war, officials said. One police officer was killed by a hand grenade during the brief clash. No students were hurt. Three suspected militants turned up at the privately run Oxford Public School in Tank, a town in northwestern Pakistan about 60 miles from the Afghan border, local police chief Mumtaz Khan said. The third militant was arrested.
[Last modified March 27, 2007, 01:28:48]
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