four army generals who were central in staging the coup against Sharif's government that included General Musharraf General Ehsan ul Haq, Aziz Khan, Mahmood Ahmad and Shahid Aziz. They played a crucial role in installing General Musharraf as Chief Executive while they detained Sharif in a local prison. On 14 October 1999, Musharraf appeared on television to declare a state of emergency and issued a Provisional Constitutional Order that ultimately suspended the writ of the Constitution of Pakistan and dissolved the National Assembly and four provincial assemblies, although they left Muhammad Rafiq Tarar in office as President. However, General Musharraf strongly objected the wordage use of "martial law" or "coup d'état", instead insisting that: "This is not martial law, only another path towards democracy." The ISPR also confirmed that "There is no martial law in the country." Text of Proclamation of Emergency Soon after taking over the country, an emergency was declared in the country. Following is the text of the Proclamation of Emergency declared by Musharraf: Text of Provisional Constitutional Order 1999 Following is the text of Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) promulgated by Musharraf. After its proclamation, the order was modified on multiple occasions: Impact Upon hearing the news of Sharif's arrest, the PML(N) partisans and the party leadership led by Javed Hashmi, a conservative politician in Lahore and Mamnoon Hussain in Karachi called out and led massive street demonstrations and protests in the streets of Lahore, Karachi, and other cities. The conservative supporters of Nawaz Sharif did not welcome this coup and saw this event as a conspiracy but many of Sharif's rivals welcome this coup, eventually holding celebration parties around different parts of the country. Although there were reports of unconfirmed media blackout of Sharif-aligned conservative media, no restrictions were imposed on the liberal/libertarian news media. There were reports of repression and human rights abuse taken place by the authorities under General Musharraf, as the pro-democracy demonstrations were forcefully and effectively crushed by Musharraf's regime. Legality and legitimacy of the coup The Supreme Court of Pakistan courted by the Chief Justice Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui partially provided the legality of the martial law in a view of "doctrine of necessity" after Musharraf's lawyer Sharifuddin Pirzada argued for the martial law on technicality, but its legality was only limited to three years. Meanwhile, Sharif was tried by the military judge advocate general where allegations of corruption, terrorism, and money laundering