President Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday the people of Pakistan were with him as he tacitly supported the Muttahida Quami Movement for holding a “successful” rally to show the government’s strength and blamed opposition parties and “advisers” of the chief justice for law and order problems in Karachi. Addressing a PML rally here, Musharraf said he had the highest regard for the judiciary and wanted it to be fully independent. “I am also for independence of the judiciary,” he said, adding that those who were politicising the judicial crisis had a different agenda aimed at disturbing law and order. “The government had warned them against going to Karachi but they did not listen to the advice,” he said. Referring to the killings in Karachi, he said these people died in their struggle for “real independence of the judiciary”.
He said the government did not want to hold public meetings during the judicial crisis but it decided to do so because the opposition was “exploiting the issue”. “We waited for two months and then decided to show our strength,” he said, adding that it was the largest gathering he had addressed. Musharraf said that Pakistan was on the track of progress. “No emergency is being imposed… the people are with me,” he said.