Pakistan Puts Bhutto Under House Arrest

Police placed dissident leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest for three months today, two days after she urged the government to abide by its pledge to end martial law by 1986.

Authorities delivered the warrant to Bhutto, 32, leader of the outlawed Pakistan People’s Party, at her residence in Karachi. Police said it was issued to ensure that the daughter of the late Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto does not prejudice national security.

Bhutto was confined to her house and forbidden to see anyone except servants, government spokesman Yunis Sethi said. Armed police took up positions around the Bhutto family home and prevented anyone from entering the premises. Members of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party who tried to approach the area were ordered to leave.

Father Hanged in 1979

Bhutto is regarded as the most prominent leader of the opposition to the regime of President Zia ul-Haq, the general who ousted her father in 1977. Her father was hanged in 1979 for his alleged role in a political assassination.

Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan on Aug. 21 from Paris for the burial of her youngest brother, Shahnawaz, after nearly two years of self-imposed exile in Europe. Shahnawaz died July 21 in his apartment in Cannes, France, under mysterious circumstances.

Bhutto arrived in Karachi on Tuesday from her hometown of Larkana and urged Prime Minister Mohammed Khan Junejo to abide by his promise to lift martial law by 1986.

“PPP will neither create any problem for Prime Minister Junejo nor give him any excuse to back out from the commitment . . . to lift martial law by Jan. 1, 1986,” she told suporters at the Karachi airport.

Warns of Movement

She warned that her party will launch a nationwide opposition movement if martial law is not lifted by that date.

Bhutto had been receiving political supporters at her Karachi home and had made several statements against the military government.

Authorities earlier today issued another order barring Bhutto from going to Malir and Lyari on the outskirts of Karachi to visit the families of two party activists. She refused to accept that order.

Bhutto was held under preventive detention at her Karachi residence between March, 1981, and January, 1984, when she was allowed to travel to Europe for medical treatment.