Benazir Bhutto blocked

Benazir Bhutto said here on Friday that she was struggling to save Pakistan from becoming another Iraq, when police besieged her residence and disallowed her from going to address a public rally in Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi, and served her house arrest notice.
Police, cordoning off her residence, sealed all entry and exit points, and arrested PPP workers including men and women and parliamentarians who tried to reach her. Address people outside her home through a megaphone she asked President Musharraf to quit as Army Chief, lift emergency, and hold free and fair elections to bring normalcy.
Pakistan People's Party, she said, was striving to empower the masses as dictatorship was harming Pakistan. "We do not want Iraq-like situation in Pakistan. Iraq, once a wealthy state, suffered because of military rule," she said.
She said that the government had failed to maintain law and order situation. Pakistan facing worst kind of law and order situation as police was let loose to crush peaceful pro-democracy rallies, rather than mending law and order.
"My home was virtually turned into a police state," she added. It was gruesome, she said, that poor children were murdered and people were striving to save themselves from state terrorism. She urged people to get united to save Quaid's Pakistan.
Benazir said that over 5,000 activists, striving for democracy, were brutally victimised and arrested. This, she said, was state terrorism, and people, acting on the voice of their conscious, should come out and join the struggle for democracy.
"It is strange," she said, "that the government knows about suicide attackers and, instead of taking action, was informing Pakistan People's Party to scare its leaders. Why the government is not arresting them, if it knows about them," she asked. She expressed concern about tribal belt, saying that army men kidnapping in tribal areas indicated "how weak Pakistan is today".
Returning to democratic path, she said, was the only way to put Pakistan out of current crisis, and save it. She said it was her firm belief that masses would triumph finally. Earlier, during the day, police remained busy picking up PPP workers from outside her residence, blocked with barbed wire and police vehicles.
However, PPP's leaders Pervez Asharaf, Khurshid Shah, Manzoor Wasan, Ashiq Fardos Awaan, Raza Rabbani, Yousaf Talpur, and Farzana Raja were allowed access to her residence.
Talking to newsmen outside Benazir's house, Mehmood Qureshi said that negotiations between government and PPP were suspended the very moment when Musharraf imposed emergency. They vowed to go ahead with the plan of long march if Musharraf did not shed his military uniform, announce to hold election on January 15 and lifted emergency.Benazir twice tried to leave her house for addressing public rally in Rawalpindi but was blocked by police. She held deliberations with top party leadership at her residence earlier in the day.