The Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) Secretary General Rauf Khan Sasoli, while strongly condemning the arrest of party leader Shahzain Bugti, has demanded of Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to take suo motu notice of the incident and declare all official charges against him as false.
Talking to newsmen here on Friday, he said that their party would start a peaceful protest demonstration across the country if the government did not release the leader immediately. They said that Shahzain was innocent and a true patriot, and the allegations of holding illegal and unlicensed ammunition against him were not true. He termed the arrest a government conspiracy aimed at halting a long march scheduled for January 28 from Lahore to Dera Bugti, which Shahzain himself had announced. He added that the long march would be held as per schedule.
Providing details of the JWP chief's arrest at the Buleli checkpoint, he pleaded his innocence and said that he was not involved in any illegal activity against the state. "All 17 men, who guard him have only 17 licensed kalashnikovs," he said while rejecting the claim of Frontier Constabulary (FC) that Shahzain had heavy unregistered and smuggled ammunition. "No other ammunition was there. The officials have made a fake story to implicate him," Rauf said. The JWP leader clarified that Shahzain was travelling in a caravan of five vehicles in which only 17 guards were riding with him from Chaman.
He stated that some 12 unidentified vehicles followed Shahzain's caravan from Kuchlak to Buleli area in the night, claiming that these cars were not part of his motorcade. He said that from Chaman to Buleli, Shahzain's caravan had passed around 12 checkposts of the FC, but no one stopped it. At the Buleli checkpoint, the FC officials halted Shahzain and counted the other 12 unidentified vehicles in his caravan, he said, alleging that all this was done on the directions of the rulers and disinformation of the intelligence agencies. "Shahzain also contacted Nawaz Sharif and US diplomats to inform them about the highhandedness of the FC," he added.