Benazir challenges Mush, wants polls on time

Islamabad: Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto said on Wednesday opposition supporters will begin a long march from Lahore on November 13 unless President General Pervez Musharraf quits the army.

Bhutto threw down the gauntlet to army chief Musharraf after consulting other opposition leaders over strategy to make him abandon emergency rule. "If demands are not met by November 9, we'll start a long march from Lahore on November 13 and then we will stage a sit-in in Islamabad," Benazir, chief of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) told reporters.

"President Musharraf should honour his commitment before the Supreme Court and the promise he made to the Pakistan People's Party during talks that he'll take off his uniform by November 15," Benazir said.

"Before November 15, the Pakistan election commission should announce an election schedule and judges, lawyers and political activists should be released," she added.

Police swung batons and fired tear gas at Bhutto’s supporters near the Parliament on Wednesday. Hundreds of protesters pushed metal barricades into ranks of riot police blocking their path. Police beat several activists, some of them women, who broke through, and dragged at least six people from the scene.

Musharraf suspended the constitution after declaring the state of emergency on Saturday. He has since ousted independent-minded judges, put a stranglehold on the media and granted sweeping powers to authorities to crush dissent.

Thousands of people have been rounded up and put in jail or under house arrest.

Three days of protests by lawyers have been quickly put down with force. However, violent clashes with Bhutto's supporters could deepen the uncertainty engulfing a country already shaken by rising Islamic militancy.

With the encouragement of the United States, Musharraf had held negotiations with Bhutto widely expected to lead to a power-sharing arrangement after parliamentary elections originally slated for January.

But with the elections schedule up in the air, Bhutto on Wednesday set a collision course with Musharraf by calling her supporters to defy the ban on rallies by marching on Parliament and also attending a mass rally in the nearby city of Rawalpindi on Friday.