More Ferment

President Ayub Khan had evidently seriously misjudged the mood of Pakistan. Three weeks ago, in an effort to calm the country's increasingly troubled political scene, the President ordered the arrest of left-leaning Opposition Leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. But the un rest continued, and last week, in one of Pakistan's most turbulent periods since independence in 1947, thousands of angry citizens, mostly students, surged through the streets virtually every day in protest against Ayub's rule.

Their demands were varied: the release of Bhutto, improvements in education, better living conditions, press freedom, an end to emergency laws and to Ayub's presidential system, which is based on a narrow electoral college of 120,000 privileged people. Demonstrations, some peaceful, some unruly, hit at least three dozen towns and cities in both West and East Pakistan.

The police were generally restrained, but occasionally used tear gas and let fly with their lathis, or steel-tipped bamboo poles. In Rawalpindi, 20,000 students marched for seven hours, shouting "Death to Ayub!" and "Bhutto zin-dabad!" (Long live Bhutto.) It was the largest protest in the capital since Ayub came to power ten years ago. The crowd was peaceful at first, but then attacked two pro-government newspaper offices.

Three days later, again in Rawalpindi, police battled 7,000 demonstrators, who had taken to stoning cars. The government called in troops. In Peshawar,* students, shouting antigovernment slogans, broke into the U.S. Information Service offices and ransacked them, then pelted trains and buses with rocks. Even veiled women participated in some of the protests--a rare act in conservative Moslem Pakistan. The governor of West Pakistan, Mohammed Musa, appealed three times in two weeks over nation wide radio for an end to the disturbances--in vain.

Stumping the Country. The unrest confronting Ayub was heightened by the unexpected decision of retired Air Marshal Mohammed Asghar Khan, air force commander until 1965, to enter politics on the side of Ayub's opposition. The 47-year-old Asghar Khan has so far refused to ally himself directly with any of the opposition parties. But he is stumping the country with a campaign that calls for the release of Bhutto and demands an end to the bribery, nepotism and incompetence that he says are rampant in the government of President Ayub.

Overnight, the marshal has become an opposition hero and a formidable prospect for next year's presidential elections. The opposition cause was also boosted by widely respected Syed Mahbub Murshed, former Chief Justice of the East Pakistan High Court, who told the nation that "we are not destined to perish in ignominy if we put up a determined and united resistance to evil."

Many Pakistanis apparently shared that conviction: at week's end the wave of protests continued virtually unabated.

* Where the U.S. at Pakistan's request, will soon begin closing an intelligence base from which it has been monitoring Soviet missile and space programs.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.