KARACHI  - Former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, who returned to the country this week to participate in the May 11 polls, was on Friday barred from leaving the country by Sindh High Court where an angry lawyer hurled a shoe at him.
A single member bench of the SHC, however, accepted 69-year-old Musharraf’s request for extension of bail for 15 days in a series of cases, which was granted before he arrived back in the country.
The pre-arrest bail serves to prevent his arrest for past charges. While coming out of the court complex, Musharraf was shoed by a lawyer.
Angry scenes were witnessed and people, including groups of lawyers, shouted slogans against him.
Footage on TV showed the shoe flying through the air and landing among a group of people in front of Musharraf. The shoe hurled by advocate Tajammul Lodhi in the corridor did not hit Musharraf and he was escorted safely out of the court by security personnel. Lodhi was detained and taken to an undisclosed location.
This was not the first time that a shoe was hurled at Musharraf. In 2011, a man tried to hurl his shoe at him when the former president was addressing a gathering in Britain.
Musharraf had arrived in the court through VIP entrance but as soon as news spread of his presence, the lawyers started protesting and tried to enter the chamber of the chief justice. There were scuffles between lawyers and policemen. Musharraf was required to appear in person in the court to extend the bail allowance.
The court, however, barred him from leaving the country without its permission.
On 22 March a single-judge bench, headed by chief justice Mushir Alam, had granted a 10-day bail period to the former president who returned home on Sunday after being in self-imposed exile since 2009.
The high court had also granted Musharraf a pre-arrest bail in the Baloch nationalist leader Akbar Bugti and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto murder cases.
The pre-arrest bail had paved the way for his return to Karachi on March 22.
Musharraf, through his counsel, submitted on Friday that he left the country on his own but at relevant time no case was registered against him. However, he added that after his departure from the country numerous cases have been planted due to malafide and obvious reasons that he could not come back to country. Musharraf, who seized power in 1999 and left Pakistan after stepping down in 2008, is also wanted in the country for conspiracy to murder and illegally arresting judges.
The anti-terrorism court had declared him a fugitive and issued arrest warrants for him after he refused to cooperate with investigators probing Bhutto’s killing.
Musharraf, who formed political party All Pakistan Muslim League, intends to lead his party in the May 11 polls.
SHC Chief Justice Musheer Alam has ordered a judicial inquiry into the chaotic scenes and the shoe throwing incident within the court premises.
In Karachi, a group of lawyers protested outside the Sindh High Court on Friday as Musharraf entered. They chanted slogans against the former military strongman and jostled with his supporters.
On his return from exile, Musharraf was only met by a couple thousand reporters when his flight from Dubai landed in Karachi, and analysts have said they don't expect his party to attract much support in parliamentary elections scheduled for May 11.