Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf was today booked for "illegally" detaining 60 judges after imposing emergency in 2007, an unprecedented move that could eventually land him in prison or force him to turn his current stay abroad into a permanent exile.
Interestingly, the development came on a day when Musharraf, who is in London on a long lecture tour of Europe, turned 66.
The Islamabad police registered an FIR against the former president for illegal confinement of the country's top judges after the imposition of emergency on November 3, 2007.
The criminal case was registered by the Secretariat Police after District and Sessions judge Akmal Raza yesterday asked it to register an FIR against Musharraf, two weeks after the apex court declared his move as "unconstitutional."
The court order was issued after lawyer Aslam Ghuman filed an application asking for a case to be registered against Musharraf.
This was the first time that a court had asked police to register a case against Musharraf. Several persons, including relatives of people detained by intelligence agencies, had earlier approached police for registering cases against Musharraf but officials had been reluctant to act.
In his application, Ghuman accused Musharraf of illegally detaining over 60 judges, including Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, after imposing emergency.
