New Delhi: Pakistan continues to simmer the hearing of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry's case continues. A reconstituted 13-member panel of judges has begun hearing petitions on Tuesday.
In Pakistan, a reconstituted 13-member panel of judges will begin hearing petitions relating to the suspension of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
The panel was supposed to begin hearings on Monday. But it had to be reconstituted after one of the judges, Justice Falak Sher, refused to participate in the proceedings.
Sher said he had previously challenged Chaudhry's appointment as Chief Justice and so his participation in the panel would be inappropriate.
Protests against Musharraf are on the rise, and Karachi is on high alert after nearly 40 people died in clashes between pro-government and Opposition supporters over the weekend.
Opposition parties and many ordinary citizens blamed Musharraf and his political allies for the bloodshed in Karachi on Saturday, when rival political groups staging rallies over a visit by the judge to the volatile city clashed in the streets. Security forces failed to intervene.
The Opposition strike call was observed in most of Pakistan's major cities, including Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta, but particularly Karachi.
The city of 15 million people was paralyzed, with shops closed and traffic thin - but also because local officials banned public gatherings and authorized security forces to shoot rioters on sight.
''What happened in Karachi was shameful for the government,'' said Aslam Khan, a general store owner in Peshawar who supported the strike.
In Lahore, about 8,000 people, including lawyers, opposition party members and human rights activists, burned two effigies of Musharraf.
They also chanted ''Death to Altaf Hussain,'' referring to a leader of the pro-government Mutahida Qaumi Movement, which was heavily implicated in the Karachi violence.
(With AP inputs)
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