Musharraf treason demands grow

By M Ilyas Khan
BBC News, Karachi

Mr Musharraf and Mr Sharif are bitter political enemies

A group of Pakistani ex-servicemen in the city of Lahore have given their backing to calls for President Musharraf to be tried for treason.

About 70 former senior military officers said that the president should be prosecuted for "various misdemeanours" since 1999.

On Tuesday senior politician Nawaz Sharif joined a retired general to call for the president to be charged.

He says he will strongly resist any effort to prosecute him.

The Ex-Servicemen's Association (ESA) is a group of retired military officers that has emerged as part of the recent civil society movement against President Musharraf.

Its members advocate the restoration of judges sacked by the president, the rehabilitation of disgraced nuclear scientist AQ Khan and a return to Pakistan's more belligerent stand over the Kashmir dispute prior to President Musharraf's rise to power.

Mr Sharif says he will join the protest march against the president

It also wants a complete pull-out of troops from areas where operations against militants are active in the tribal areas and North West Frontier Province.

President Musharraf has also come under attack from the ESA for his policy of supporting the US-led "war on terror" and his decision to sack judges in November while imposing emergency rule.

Meanwhile lawyers who are campaigning for the restoration of the sacked judges say that they plan to hold a protest march beginning on 10 June through the country's most populous province, Punjab.

Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) emerged as the largest party in Punjab in February's elections and says it will join the march.

The ESA has also announced that its members will join the march, as have many other political groups that boycotted the February parliamentary elections.