Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) will observe October 12 as the black day to mark the military take-over on the same day in 1999, but neither Nawaz Sharif nor Shahbaz will be speaking to the protest meetings across the country.
Similarly, Pakistan Peoples' Party Parliamentarians (PPP-P) and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) will be participating in such programmes, but not their frontline leadership.
PML Vice-President Syed Zafar Ali Shah told Business Recorder on Wednesday that the main protest meeting to mark the day would be held in the party's camp office here. PML Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq, Secretary General Zafar Iqbal and other senior leaders would be attending the programme in the federal capital. Similar activities would also be held at the provincial, district and tehsil levels.
He did not rule out a copy of the memoirs of President General Pervez Musharraf being set ablaze on the occasion. "I can't rule out this. At the spur of moment, this could be done," he remarked.
Asked what was different this time as compared to previous years since 1999, the PML leader pointed out that two major political forces had signed the charter of democracy, which could bar the military coup in future.
Likewise, he said, General Musharraf had desperately tried in his book to show himself indispensable for carrying out the West's policies in this part of the world. PML will reiterate its commitment to step up struggle for removal of the present government, paving the way for an interim set-up to hold free and fair elections under an independent election commission, he maintained.
About the black day, PPP-P Information Secretary MNA Sherry Rehman welcomed the PML decision and proposed that the whole month of October should be observed as such.
"What General Musharraf has given to the masses in seven years - unemployment, growing economic deprivation, hardships, uncontrollable price spiral and lawlessness. The people have now seen the real face of the rulers, which is deceptive," she alleged.
She charged that General Musharraf had pushed the country to a very precarious position, wherein there was virtually a one-man rule. Sherry said in connection with the black day, she would be attending a programme organised by PML leader and ex-governor Sindh Mamnoon Hussain on Thursday.
PPPP leader contended that Musharraf was following two-pronged strategy: portraying himself and the government abroad as secular and moderate whereas back in the country, persecuting the moderate forces.
Speaking on the matter, MMA Deputy Secretary General Hafiz Hussain Ahmed said that the events, unfolding after October 12, 1999 and 9/11, had proved that PML government was toppled under a conspiracy to bring Musharraf to power so that the US could fulfil its diabolical agenda in Pakistan and in the region.
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