The Pakistan government on Wednesday intensified its crackdown on the opposition parties protesting against the emergency by slapping the draconian Anti-Terrorism Act on cricket legend and politician Imran Khan while former premier Benazir Bhutto spent a second day under house arrest in Lahore.
Imran was charged under Pakistan's Anti-Terrorism Act, which includes penalties that can carry the death sentence or life imprisonment, media reports said.
Khan, who had gone underground following imposition of emergency on November 3, emerged from hiding to join a protest rally of students at the Punjab University in Lahore.
However, he was promptly detained by radical students at the university and subsequently handed over to police. He was finally taken to an undisclosed location, TV channels in Lahore reported.
Before he was handed over to police, Khan, the leader of Tehreek-e Insaf party, was locked up in a building at the campus for almost 90 minutes by members of the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, the student wing of the hardline Jamaat-e-Islami.
Speaking to reporters at the gate, Khan urged people to prepare for a campaign against President Pervez Musharraf and the emergency.
Police said an FIR would be lodged against him for violating emergency regulations and participating in a rally.
Earlier police in Faislabad arrested Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a senior leader of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, who was leading a "long march" against the emergency after the former premier was put under house arrest in Lahore on Tuesday.
As he was being taken into custody, Qureshi said he had been illegally arrested along with three PPP members of the Punjab provincial assembly.