Pakistan's top judge leads rally as US officials meet Musharraf

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Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri shakes hands with the US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, left, at the foreign ministry in Islamabad, Pakistan Friday.

ISLAMABAD, June 16 (AFP): Thousands of Pakistanis turned out in support of the country's suspended chief justice Saturday as top US officials held talks with embattled 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 290-kilometre (180-mile) procession from Islamabad to the industrial city of Faisalabad.
Chanting "Go, Musharraf, go," the onlookers -- lawyers, opposition party faithful and ordinary residents -- braved searing heat to express solidarity with the independent-minded judge, who was ousted by Musharraf 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 rallying call for the independence of the judiciary.
A senior lawyer, Omar Irshad, told AFP more than 600 vehicles were traveling in the judge's motorcade. He 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 travelled 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 an unprecedented 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 due 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 here for the last 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.