The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Lahore

The government lifted the house arrest of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, police said Friday, hours before the arrival in Pakistan of a senior U.S. official expected to urge the country's military leader to end emergency rule. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf meanwhile pressed ahead with plans for parliamentary elections, despite the threat of an opposition boycott, by swearing in a caretaker administration. Police said the detention order against Bhutto was withdrawn overnight.

"The house is no longer a sub-jail but security will remain for her own protection. She's free to move and anyone will be able to go to the house," Zahid Abbas, a senior police official, told an Associated Press reporter near the barricaded house where Bhutto has been confined for three days.

However, trucks and tractors were still parked across the road leading to the house in the eastern city of Lahore early Friday, and police would not let reporters cross the cordon. Bhutto, a two-time former prime minister who returned from exile last month to launch a political comeback, was detained Tuesday to prevent her from leading a protest against Musharraf's Nov. 3 declaration of a state of emergency.

She has the highest profile among the thousands of political activists who have been detained in a government crackdown on dissent that sparked an outcry at home and abroad.

Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, insists he is still moving toward a restoration of democracy and civilian rule that Western governments believe could help stabilize the nuclear-armed country as it battles rising Islamic extremism.

At a ceremony in the capital, Islamabad, a somber-faced Musharraf said the outgoing Cabinet should be proud of having helped turn around the economy and move Pakistan back toward democracy.

"I take pride in the fact that, being a man in uniform, I have actually introduced the essence of democracy in Pakistan, whether anyone believes it or not," the general said after installing the caretaker ministers at the presidential palace.