The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Lahore

Pakistan cricket legend Imran Khan was arrested by police after he emerged from hiding to join a student rally against President Pervez Musharraf's emergency rule, police said.

Appearing in public for the first time since slipping out from house arrest, Khan was grabbed by Islamist students when he tried to take part in the demonstration at a university campus in the eastern city of Lahore.

He was lifted onto the shoulders of demonstrators amid chaotic scenes and then pushed inside a building by a crowd, before being bundled into an unmarked white van. He was later handed over to police.

"I came to the university to lead a rally of students against the dictator Musharraf and his illegal actions," Khan told AFP by telephone from police custody as he was whisked away from the campus.

"I have achieved my purpose. I have started the student movement."

Khan, who has founded a small opposition party, said he was betrayed by students who "collaborated" with the administration of Lahore's Punjab University.

"They took me into the office and then forced me out into a van. They did not allow me to be arrested publicly," he said.

Police said Khan-who called for Musharraf to be hanged for treason after the military ruler declared a state of emergency on November 3 -- would be placed back under house arrest.

"He is in police custody and he is under 90 days detention," Rana Mansoor, district police chief, told AFP. "The orders were issued under the maintenance of public order laws."

Khan's reappearance comes amid mounting opposition to the state of emergency, with former premier Benazir Bhutto trying to forge a united front with other Musharraf opponents, including the former cricketer.

Bhutto remained under house arrest in Lahore to prevent her leading a mass procession against emergency rule, after Tuesday calling on Musharraf to quit and vowing never to serve under him in government.

Some 1,000 police kept up a security stranglehold around the house, which was surrounded by barbed wire and barricades.

Musharraf vowed Wednesday not to quit until the country's political turmoil was over, strongly defending his decision to impose a state of emergency.

In an interview with Britain's Sky News television, he reiterated general elections promised by January 9 would be held under emergency rule.

"The day when there is no turmoil in Pakistan, I will step down," he said in brief excerpts released by Sky on its website.

"I am not a dictator, I want a democracy."

Washington, which views Musharraf as a key ally in its "war on terror," is dispatching John Negroponte, the deputy to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to Islamabad this week to urge an end to the emergency.

US President George W. Bush called for a swift return to democracy.

"He understands the stakes of the war, and I do believe he understands the importance of democracy," Bush told the Fox Business Network.

In Lahore, Bhutto followed up her rhetoric against Musharraf with phone calls on Tuesday to Khan, the party of exiled premier and former rival Nawaz Sharif, and even the Islamic fundamentalists she once shunned.

"It is over with Musharraf," Bhutto said. "I want to build an alliance, a single-point agenda for the restoration of democracy."

Significantly, many of her counterparts, including Sharif, gave a positive reaction to their contacts with Bhutto.

Analysts said they expected them to unite under a one- or two-point agenda.

The first would be to push Musharraf to quit as president, and the second would be to boycott the elections, robbing them of credibility.

A senior security official in Lahore said Bhutto's house arrest was likely to continue through the day.

Four Pakistan intelligence agencies reported the presence of two Egyptians in Lahore who could try to target a gathering of her party, a top government official told AFP.

Besides,Musharraf's government rejected a demand from the Commonwealth group of countries that it lift emergency rule and restore the constitution, saying it is unable to do so.The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, meeting in London, had set Nov. 22 as the date for the government of President Pervez Musharraf to end the emergency he imposed Nov. 3 or face suspension from the 53-member group, which is made up of Britain and mostly independent countries that were once British colonies.

Expressing disappointment over the group's statement, the Pakistan foreign office said the emergency decree was imposed to prevent an institutional breakdown and internal crisis, Dawn newspaper reported Wednesday.

"Pakistan will follow its own road map to transition to democracy as outlined by the president," the foreign office said in a statement. "Decisions on issues of vital importance will be taken in accordance with our national interests and requirements and not in observance of any artificially set time lines from outside."

The Daily Times quoted sources as saying major countries in the Commonwealth group had no problems with the emergency rule because they understood the situation in Pakistan.