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Pakistan's Bhutto under house arrest - opposition

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Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has been placed under house arrest prior to her planned rally against the current state of emergency, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) said on Friday.
ISLAMABAD, November 9 (RIA Novosti) - Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has been placed under house arrest prior to her planned rally against the current state of emergency, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) said on Friday.

The ex-premier, who returned to Pakistan after more than eight years of self-imposed exile last month, earlier said she was planning to attend a rally in Rawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad, later this afternoon.

The PPP press-service confirmed that Bhutto had been detained at her house in Islamabad. Her house has also been surrounded by police, a spokeswoman said.

The opposition also said around 5,000 of Bhutto's supporters were arrested late on Thursday, mainly in the Punjab province, to prevent them from attending Friday's rally.

However, the authorities denied Bhutto was officially under house arrest and announced that the security measures had been applied to ensure her safety in the light of recent terrorist attacks against the opposition leader.

Two blasts that rocked Karachi in October left 140 people dead and over 500 injured as hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets to greet Bhutto on her homecoming.

"She is free to go anywhere, but if she tries to go to the rally she'll be stopped," said an anonymous government source.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in the country last Saturday, citing a dangerous rise in militant activity.

According to Pakistan's Interior Ministry, about 670 people in Pakistan have been killed and over 1,800 injured in a total of 157 terrorist attacks this year.

The president banned the Supreme Court from overturning the emergency order, blocked non-state TV broadcasts, and restricted freedom of movement in the country, measures which all have been widely condemned by the international community.

Bhutto called the imposed emergency rule "unconstitutional," and demanded that Musharraf set a concrete date for general elections, step down as army chief, and release people detained in the last few days.

Following a meeting of the National Security Council on Thursday, President Musharraf said that parliamentary elections, originally set for January, would be delayed for no more than a month, Pakistan state media reported.

Benazir Bhutto has previously served as Pakistan's prime minister on two separate occasions. However, both her previous governments were brought down amid corruption allegations and she went into self-imposed exile in 1999. She has dismissed the corruption allegations against her as politically motivated.

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