Beleaguered former President Pervez Musharraf was on Thursday arrested for ordering a crackdown on the radical lal Masjid, less than 24 hours after his lawyers claimed he could walk out of house arrest after being granted bail in the Akbar Bugti murder case.
”The SSP of Islamabad and the chief of Aabpara Police Station went to his house and arrested him,” said Aasia Ishaque, spokesperson for Musharraf’s All Pakistan Muslim league party told PTI. On September 2, police filed a case against Musharraf over the killing of cleric Abdul Rashid and his mother during the 2007 military operation against extremists holed up in the lal Masjid. The operation, ordered by Musharraf, ended with a bloody eight-day siege that killed nearly 100 people, including Pakistani troops.
The case was filed on the directions of Justice Noorul Huque Qureshi of the Islamabad High Court, who was annoyed over the non-compliance of an earlier order.