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Crowds flock to welcome Chaudhry

Thousands of Pakistanis turned out in support of the country's suspended chief justice yesterday as top US officials held talks with embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

An enthusiastic flag-waving crowd gave a warm welcome to top judge Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in the city of Chakwal, the first stop on his 290km procession from Islamabad to the industrial city of Faisalabad.

Chanting "Go, Musharraf, go," the onlookers -- lawyers, opposition party faithful and ordinary residents -- braved the searing heat to express their solidarity with the independent-minded judge, who was ousted on March 9.

Chaudhry's suspension has sparked the biggest opposition movement in this nuclear-armed Islamic republic since military ruler Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

In a crackdown ahead of Chaudhry's arrival, police arrested an unspecified number of opposition party activists.

The parties said hundreds of their workers had been rounded up in central Punjab Province, where Faisalabad is located.

The judge has led similar gatherings at a number of other places in the country making a call for the independence of the judiciary.

A senior lawyer, Omar Irshad, said more than 600 vehicles were traveling in the judge's motorcade.

Chaudhry was to make two more stops in the towns of Pindi Bhattian and Chiniot before reaching Faisalabad.

Tens of thousands greeted the chief justice along the way when he traveled to the northwestern city of Abbotabad and Lahore in the east on previous occasions.

But more than 40 people were killed after clashes between rival political factions broke out when Chaudhry tried and failed to address a meeting in the southern port city of Karachi.

Chaudhry's Faisalabad visit comes as three senior US officials were in Islamabad in a collective visit to Pakistan, one of Washington's key allies in the "war on terror."

The officials were expected to press Musharraf to hold free and fair elections in this year or early 2008.

US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arrived in the Pakistani capital Friday while his assistant Richard Boucher has already been there for three days holding meetings with government officials, election commission authorities and opposition parties.

Negroponte and Boucher "called on President Musharraf and exchanged views on bilateral relations, regional and international issues as well as Pakistan's key role in the fight against terrorism," a foreign ministry official said.

The chief of the US Central Command covering Iraq and Afghanistan, Navy Admiral William Fallon, flew in on Friday.

Analysts say Washington is keen to support Musharraf's administration amid the judicial crisis because it regards him as a bulwark against Taliban militants leading an insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan.

Boucher said earlier this week that the US expected that elections should be "free, fair and transparent" and conform to international standards.

But he said there was no pressure on Musharraf to quit his dual role as army chief and president despite calls from the opposition.

"That particular question needs to be answered but I think we have a bit of patience in seeing it answered at whatever is the appropriate time," Boucher said.

Musharraf abandoned Pakistan's support for Afghanistan's Taliban regime after the Sept. 11 attacks on the US and became a central ally in Washington's fight against al-Qaeda and other Islamists.

Opposition leaders, including ex-cricketer Imran Khan, say President Musharraf suspended Chaudhry to make it easier to be re-elected as president by the outgoing parliament in defiance of the Constitution.
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