Imran Khan runs away from house arrest

Former cricketer and chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan Niazi has reportedly managed to run away from his house here today, after he was put under house arrest in the wake of the imposition of emergency.

"He was detained along with eight supporters at the house. The supporters are at home but he has slipped away," his close relative told a foreign news agency.

Imran Khan was put under house arrest hours after President Pervez Musharraf tried to justify the imposition of emergency in the country and was kept confined at his home in Lahore.

The former skipper of the Pakistan Cricket Team, which brought the World Cup to Pakistan in 1992, had launched a verbal diatribe on Saturday against Musharraf, soon after the imposition of emergency.

Khan had demanded death penalty for Musharraf for "committing treason."

Calling on Pakistanis to protest Musharraf's move and not to recognize new Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, Khan had said: " I urge the people, lawyers, civil society to resist this move by Musharraf. I urge lawyers to boycott the court proceedings."

Even after being kept under house arrest, he told CNN that General Musharraf was squarely to blame for Pakistan's problems.

"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," he said on early Sunday morning.