Islamabad: Leading Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan escaped from his home in Lahore on Sunday hours after police put him under house arrest following the imposition of emergency rule by President Pervez Musharraf.
"He was detained along with eight supporters at the house. The supporters are at home but he has slipped away," a close relative told Reuters. Police are still outside the house.
Khan, who captained his cricket-mad country to victory in the 1992 World Cup, had earlier urged Pakistanis to take to the streets to protest against Musharraf's action.
"Imran Khan has been put under house arrest while (opposition lawyers) Munir A Malik and Aitzaz Ahsan were arrested under a one-month detention order," Khan's close aide and senior lawyer Hamid Khan told Reuters.
Khan's political party has little support, but he is a high profile and respected opposition figure. Educated at England's elite Oxford University, his sporting past makes him a high profile figure internationally.
"I ask people to come out on the streets. We will ask lawyers, political parties to come out on the streets," Imran Khan had told Geo News.
Khan, speaking after his house arrest, told CNN that Musharraf was squarely to blame for Pakistan's problems and said Emergency rule would not help.
"He never said how is he through the Emergency going to do things that are any different. He was the absolute ruler, he had absolute control so what was the impediment in his way to fight militancy and terrorism,” Khan said.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in a bid to end an eight-month crisis over his rule stoked by challenges from a hostile judiciary, Islamist militants and political rivals. He banned the media from publishing anything that defamed, ridiculed or brought himself, the armed forces or government into disrepute.
Telephone lines in central Islamabad were down, and private television channels were taken off the air.
As Musharraf sent troops onto the streets and suspended the constitution, weary Pakistanis feared a gloomy future and put the blame for the Islamic nation's woes on his shoulders.
(With AP and IBNLive.com inputs)
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