Mrs Bhutto held in crackdown

Press, 28 February 1981, Page 8

Mrs Bhutto held in crackdown

NZPA-Reuter Lahore Pakistan’s military authorities, concerned about mounting anti-Government unrest, have detained the widow of the executed Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and banned her from Punjab Province, the country’s political centre. She had gone in disguise to Lahore, the Punjab capital, for the first meeting of the central action committee of the newly formed Movement for the Restoration of Democracy, Opposition sources said. With leaders from eight other political parties who had escaped arrest and restrictions on their movements imposed during the last two weeks, Mrs Bhutto backed a campaign to end martial law, establish an interim government and hold

: elections within three months. The group met twice on t Thursday in defiance of inili- : tary government regulations r and decided to launch I nationwide protests next i month culminating in a i hoped-for total strike on • March 23, Pakistan’s National Day, the sources said, > The police broke up a ■ crowd of about 300 anti- : Government demonstrators ! outside the house of a law? ■ yer, Mehmud Ali Kasuri : where the meeting took i place. Mr Kasuri was arrested last week. : A statement issued by the i Punjab military authorities • said Mrs Bhutto and Mairaj • Mohammad Khan, leader of > Pakistan’s National Liber- , ation Front, were among 87 • people “hauled up for raising objectionable slogans” i and taking part in an illegal I political meeting.

Linder Pakistan’s rigid martial law all political activity is banned. The Punjab group met after Opposition sources reported that more than 100 political, activists had been rounded up this week after student unrest. Pakistan’s military ruler, General Zia-ul-Haq, said before flying to Saudi Arabia

to join an Islamic meeting, that the Government was in control of the situation and had taken pre-emptive steps to protect public order. “Anyone who goes in for agitational politics is no friend of mine,” he said. The student violence spilled over into Sind Province on Thursday when a Right-wing Islamic student was killed and eight other students were injured during a clash with Left-wing students in the grounds of Karachi University.

Plane damaged A freak thunderbolt this week smashed a 60cm hole in the nosecone of a Lon-don-bound British Airways jumbo jet carrying 202 passengers after it took off from Los Angeles. The thunderbolt, destroying the Boeing 747’s weather radar system, struck five minutes after take-off. No injuries were reported. In spite of the gaping hole, the airliner flew on for another 10 hours to London’s Heathrow Airport, where it landed safely. — London. Second earthquake A new earthquake has flattened the village of Perachora in the Corinth region, 70km west of Athens, the epicentre of Tuesday’s major tremor which left 16 dead and more than 400 injured. The earthquake measured 4.7 on the Richter scale, compared with 6.6 registered on Tuesday. It caused extensive damage to neighbouring villages on the Gulf of Corinth and elsewhere in Attica and Peloponnesia. The area has been declared a disaster} zone. — Athens. 1