Pakistan's cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who has gone underground to evade arrest following imposition of emergency, has appealed to his countrymen to protest against the regime of President Pervez Musharraf who has carried out a "second assault" on judiciary.
Khan, who dramatically escaped after police surrounded his home near Islamabad following the proclamation of emergency on November 3, issued the call in a video released to the media from an undisclosed destination.
"If we don't resist and we don't raise our voice against (emergency), it will take us on the path to destruction," he said in a message in Urdu.
"Inshallah, I will be with you in the coming days. I will use all my powers, we will not accept this under any circumstances and we will resist in every way possible," said Khan, who was unshaven and looked haggard, clad in a salwar-kameez and a brown waistcoat.
The brief video, excerpts of which were aired on Pakistani news channels, also featured Khan delivering a message in English in which he alleged Musharraf had carried out a "second assault on the judiciary" because he was "petrified that the judgment of the Supreme Court" in the case challenging his candidature in the October 6 presidential poll would go against him.
"And so in the garb of fighting this war on terror -- and this war on terror is his only legitimacy as far as the West -is concerned - what he has done is that he has unleashed brutality that has not been known in this country before," he said.
Admiral Jawaid Iqbal, a spokesman for Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf party, told PTI on phone from an undisclosed destination that the former cricketer was "fine" but traumatised by the efforts to detain him as well as the arrest of party workers.
"He is alright but he is anguished at the way people are being arrested and tortured. He will build up a movement by mobilising the people. Imran Khan is also in touch with other opposition leaders to forge a joint strategy against emergency," Iqbal said.
Khan had earlier sent e-mail messages through his ex-wife Jemima to highlight his plight and the "ill-treatment" of his family during the government's efforts to arrest him.
In the video, he said: "The sort of suppression and oppression that is going on right now -- anyone and everyone has been put into jail.
The police raided my house and the way the police behaved with my family members in looking for me, the way they had picked up members of human rights organs, the way women have been picked up, all of them thrown into jail, the way lawyers were beaten up in the high courts of Pakistan -- it shows only one thing, that what he (Musharraf) is hoping is that through sheer brute force he is going to suppress this dissent that is being raised all over Pakistan against him."
