Probe into attacks on leaders

Islamabad: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Wednesday ordered a probe into separate incidents of manhandling of two important figures of former ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) party this week.

Lawyers thrashed former federal parliamentary affairs minister Dr Sher Afgan Niazi, one of the most vocal supporters of President Pervez Musharraf.

Reports said Niazi remained trapped in a hotel for five hours as lawyers besieged the place and came under attack while being rescued in an ambulance after intervention by prominent bar leader Aitzaz Ahsan.

Earlier in the week, former Sindh chief minister and provincial PML-Q president Arbab Ghulam Rahim was roughed up inside the provincial assembly building in Karachi, allegedly by workers of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

The incidents drew strong protests from the PML-Q and Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which blamed the attacks on the ruling coalition's major constituents. In Niazi's home town of Mianwali in Punjab province, his supporters took to the streets, blocking roads and forcing markets to shut down.

The former minister, addressing the people in Mianwali yesterday on his return to the city, appealed for calm and restoration of normal life.

Cabinet meeting

He accused former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and brother Shahbaz, whose PML-N is now the dominant party in Punjab, of being behind the Lahore incident. The party leadership denied the allegation terming it frivolous and baseless. The incidents were discussed during a cabinet meeting in Islamabad chaired by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. According to an official statement Gilani took strong note of the incidents and warned that those responsible would not be spared. He directed that a report after inquiry be submitted to him at the earliest.

PPP Co-chairman senator Asif Ali Zardari issued a statement strongly condemning the violence against Niazi. "The incident was shocking beyond measure and is condemned in the strongest terms," Zardari said. It was intriguing that it occurred when the new coalition government was about to take over administration in Punjab province, he added.

Zardari said it needed to be investigated why the law enforcing agencies watched the gory incident silently and did not take timely action to rescue Niazi from captors.

He said Rahim was manhandled in Karachi just when the new government was about to take over the administration in Sindh.

Zardari said the PPP believed in the rule of law and was deeply concerned that some elements in Karachi and Lahore tried to take law into their hands.

Aitzaz Ahsan told a news conference that those who assaulted Niazi were not lawyers. He voiced the suspicion that the incident was engineered to defame the movement of lawyers for restoration of the deposed judges and independent judiciary.