| Different version of the police action on Bhutto; heavily edited. AoS. |
Bhutto, herself kept under house arrest for most of Friday, tried to approach former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry's home where he is being detained. Police parked trucks on the road to block her path. "He is the chief justice, he is the real chief justice," Bhutto blared over a megaphone, demanding all the judges be reinstated.
Bhutto will defy Musharraf and go ahead with a pro-democracy motorcade from Lahore to Islamabad next week, after police scotched a protest by her Pakistan People's Party in the garrison town of Rawalpindi adjoining Islamabad on Friday.
Bhutto, the Pakistani politician most able to mobilize masses, was due to meet foreign diplomats later in the day. She briefly joined journalists protesting outside the offices of a television channel against a blackout on private news broadcasts. BBC and CNN are also off the air, though newspapers are publishing freely.
Bhutto is due to head to Lahore on Sunday, and has said Musharraf can defuse the protest if he restores the constitution, removes his army uniform and calls elections by mid-January.
Political analysts say Musharraf still has the vital backing of the military but big anti-government protests might begin to undermine the support. Officials say Musharraf will likely keep the emergency short. Attorney General Malik Abdul Qayyum said it would end in a month or two, depending on the law and order situation.
Bhutto has been holding power-sharing talks with Musharraf for months and political analysts say cooperation between the pair -- which the United States has been quietly encouraging -- is still possible.