Pakistan celebrates 60 years of independence

Pakistan marks the 60th anniversary of its independence from British rule today.

The celebrations come amid a political crisis facing its US-allied president and militant violence surging in recent weeks in the country’s northwest.

In the capital, Islamabad, 31 artillery guns boomed at daybreak as the start of ceremonies to mark the August 14, 1947, independence from British colonisers, who left at the partition of the subcontinent into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu dominated India.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is scheduled to raise the national flag and make an address to the nation at the main Independence Day ceremony in Islamabad later today.

President General Pervez Musharraf, in a message on Independence Day, urged Pakistanis to support moderates in new parliamentary elections expected later this year.

“I urge all Pakistani citizens to get involved in the electoral process and become the instruments of enlightened moderation in their beloved country,” Musharraf was quoted as saying in an official statement yesterday.

Musharraf, a close US ally in the war against terrorism, plans to seek another term as military head of state. But he is facing the toughest challenge yet to his rule after he took power in a bloodless coup in 1999.