Riot police and secret agencies controlled most of Pakistan on Sunday and arrested thousands of political leaders and rights activists hostile to military rule to mute a possible public protest against the overnight emergency declaration. Media reports and Interior Ministry sources said that over 1500 people were detained from all over the country.
But Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz put the figure between 400 and 500 at a news conference here. More arrests were likely as the security forces continued crackdown into the night.
Prominent among those detained were Javed Hashmi, Imran Khan; Asma Jehangir, and Hamid Gul. Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and seven other ousted Supreme Court Judges who made a last-minute attempt to block the emergency are under house arrest at their residences in Islamabad.
The situation, however, remained under control, by and large, in all big cities in Pakistan. Some small processions were taken out and a few half-muted voices were raised, though. In Islamabad, a few dozen protesters challenged huge deployment and gathered outside the Supreme Court building, but they were shortly dispersed by gun wielding police. They raised slogans 'Go, Musharraf go'.
Thirteen women activists were arrested. Rangers and police, who were transported into Islamabad on Saturday evening, surrounded the Supreme Court and established barracks by erecting sand bags in front of them.
They kept high level of vigil and stood alert on the main boulevard of the federal capital as lawyers, journalists and civil society activists vowed to defy curbs on gatherings and prepared for protest on Monday.
Rangers set up barricades and laid barbed wires to block access to the parliament, presidential residence and the Supreme Court building.
Security forces patrolled near the Radio Pakistan headquarters, television stations and hotels. Shops were open, but traffic was thin and markets were quiet.
Elsewhere in the city, hundreds of police in uniforms and secret agencies personnel in plainclothes guarded all major roads and sensitive buildings. They stopped more than five people standing together.
Outside the camp office of Islamabad Press Club a few police officials, including women police, exchanged harsh words with journalists. One of the authors of this report was threatened to be treated with bullets and batons when he argued with a police official abusing some journalists.
A vehicle of Aaj television was driven away by security forces. Later in the evening, journalists' unions held a meeting and decided to protests fresh curbs on media. They vowed not to cover official activities in future.
In Lahore, some 200 armed police stormed the rights commission office on Sunday and arrested about 50 activists, said Mehbood Ahmed Khan, a legal officer for the body, an international news agency reported. "They dragged us out, including women," he said. "It's inhuman, undemocratic and a violation of human rights to enter a room and arrest people gathering peacefully there."
In NWFP, police arrested a provincial senior vice president of the party of Nawaz Sharif when he was leading a rally in Mardan city.
Some lawyers were also picked up from Peshawar, a journalist based in the city told Business Recorder on telephone. Meanwhile, the local leadership of all opposition parties planned to launch public agitation against the emergency rule from Monday.