Clashes as Pakistan ex-PM Nawaz Sharif defies house arrest

The former premier, now the most popular political leader in the country, led about 10,000 supporters in a banned protest in Lahore but scrapped plans to address the crowd, diverting his convoy towards Islamabad as darkness fell.

Sharif, locked in a standoff with President Asif Ali Zardari since the Supreme Court on February 25 barred him from running for office, is demanding the government reinstate judges deposed by ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

"Our destiny is Islamabad. We have left for Islamabad," Sharif told flagship private television channel Geo in a telephone interview, apparently from inside his bullet-proof vehicle, still crawling through Lahore.

"The response from the people is amazing. It is a golden moment in Pakistan’s history. It is a prelude to a revolution," he said, vowing to "rescue Pakistan from those who have taken it hostage".

The authorities have sealed off the exits from Lahore with giant shipping containers, which Sharif supporters were trying to remove with the help of cranes, but it was not immediately clear whether he would be able to leave.

Soldiers armed with guns have shut off the main entry into Islamabad from the garrison city of Rawalpindi, an AFP correspondent said.

In the most violent scenes since the crisis began, riot police wearing body armour baton-charged protesters and fired tear gas. Witnesses said more than a dozen people were wounded.

"The main GPO Square looked like a battleground. I saw at least two ambulances ferrying casualties to the hospital," said resident Hanif Goraya, as Sharif supporters brought the city centre to a standstill.

"Police fired scores of shells, inside and outside the Lahore High Court building. A shell hit my left thigh, I received stitches. The injured include lawyers, political workers and some police officials," he said.

Sharif’s SUV inched down The Mall in a convoy of security vans, private guards and supporters perched in vehicles and streaming behind on foot.

"We tried our best to stop the crowd but they did not stop," Lahore city police chief Habib-ur Rehman told AFP.

Nasir Zaidi, an intelligence official in Lahore, estimated that around 10,000 people were demonstrating in the city -- 3,000 outside the high court and the rest thronging behind Sharif, heading towards the court.

Facing the worst political crisis of his rule, Zardari has ordered a countrywide crackdown, banning protests, forcibly detaining activists and blocking provincial borders in a move that provoked concern in the West.

The turmoil could not come at a worse time for the nuclear-armed Muslim nation, a central front in US President Barack Obama’s fight against Islamist militancy that is facing a wave of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked violence.

Analysts warned that a reluctant military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half its 62-year existence, could be forced to intervene.

"The situation is getting chaotic. It seems violence will take over and compel the army to intervene at some stage," defense and political analyst Talat Masood told AFP.

"The army is extremely hesitant. But it is giving Zardari a firm message to come to terms with the opposition to avert violence," he said.

Around 1,800 activists have been arrested since Thursday, the vast majority in Sharif’s stronghold of Punjab province, officials said.

The massively unpopular president, widower of assassinated former premier Benazir Bhutto, has come under huge US pressure to end the standoff and seen his Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) increasingly split by the issue.

Musharraf removed independent-minded chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and some 60 other judges in 2007, fearing that he would be declared ineligible to contest a presidential election while in military uniform.

The move triggered a countrywide protest, spearheaded by lawyers, which ultimately forced Musharraf to quit in August 2008.