Aitzaz Ahsan gaining reputation as leader of the people

Lahore: On Eid night, which fell in Pakistan on Friday, a small but enthusiastic group of people carrying candles gathered as night fell outside the home of Aitzaz Ahsan, the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA).

Braving the chill, with temperatures down to five degree centigrade, and the breeze that ruffled through the leafy, green suburb of Zaman Park, where Aitzaz's house is located, the group made up of lawyers, students, journalists and other activists shouted slogans and held up placards seeking the release of Aitzaz.

The prominent lawyer, who is also a leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) headed by Benazir Bhutto, had been arrested on November 3, when emergency was declared in the country.

Release

Just ahead of Eid Al Adha, orders had been issued to release him for three days, to mark the religious occasion.

Aitzaz had used his first day of freedom to visit judges who had refused to take oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) declared after the emergency, call in at the offices of the Geo TV Channel, whose news transmissions remain banned and at the Lahore Press Club.

The same evening, he had apparently been driving to Islamabad to offer Eid prayers the next morning alongside deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, when he, and his son who was accompanying him, were stopped by police at the small town of Chakri, located close to Islamabad.

Aitzaz was beaten, dragged into a police van and taken back to Lahore, where he is once more under house arrest.

What is interesting though is the transformation of Aitzaz, through his leadership of the lawyers' movement since March this year into a leader to whom more and more people are looking for the future.

New protest

In the SMS messages circulated to announce a new protest or update people on the latest news, Aitzaz is increasingly being referred to as "Our leader". And it seems that through its actions the regime of President Pervez Musharraf - which has claimed Aitzaz was involved in hatching a conspiracy against the President - is turning him into a kind of hero who could emerge as a pivotal figure in the politics of the future.

"He is a man of principle who we greatly respect. We see him as providing leadership to us all," said Sa'ad, 22, a student who has been involved in the ongoing movement against emergency rule.

Now it seems that in the dapper, bespectacled figure of Aitzaz, a man known also in Lahore for his love of music, poetry and for his interest in the history of the region, the still loosely-knit movement may have found a nucleus.