Ex-Premier Bhutto Arrested Amid Violence

The government arrested former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her top advisers at a huge political rally Wednesday after they defied a ban on protest and called for the overthrow of the government.

Bhutto had threatened that 100,000 marchers would storm the Parliament building. But the march, scheduled to begin in Rawalpindi 10 miles from the capital, was disrupted before it began.

Police barricaded the route, fired tear gas into the crowd and beat protesters. In the capital, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif imposed emergency measures, and troops patrolled in trucks with machine guns mounted. Thousands were detained around the country.

“My arrest won’t make any difference. The struggle will continue,” Bhutto said in a brief speech to about 40,000 supporters at a Rawalpindi park. Then she and party leaders were surrounded by 200 police officers and taken away.

The government put Bhutto on a plane for Karachi, her hometown, and said she would be barred from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, for 30 days. Government sources said she would be held under house arrest.

Bhutto says Sharif’s Islamic government, which replaced her administration in 1990, is corrupt and repressive and rose to power through rigged elections. She wants President Ghulam Ishaq Khan to establish an interim government that would oversee new elections. But her demands are unlikely to be met. Sharif’s government has a solid majority in Parliament. And Ishaq Khan makes no secret of his contempt for Bhutto.

Bhutto was dismissed from office in August, 1990, for alleged corruption, nepotism and abuse of power, paving the way for the October, 1990, elections that brought Sharif to power. Ishaq Khan has filed corruption and mismanagement charges against Bhutto. A conviction would bar her from politics for seven years.