Sharif supporters, police clash in Pakistan

PAKISTAN: Pakistani police arrested key supporters of former premier Nawaz Sharif and clashed with around 100 others as they tried to reach Islamabad airport to welcome him on his return from exile.

The activists from Sharif's faction of the Pakistan Muslim League party had their cars halted by police about five kilometres (three miles) from the airport and then tried to walk, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Police hit some people with sticks and arrested dozens of senior party members including Zafar Iqbal Jhagra, the party's secretary general, the reporter witnessed.

They also detained leaders of several nationalist parties.

More than 1,000 police were deployed to seal off the airport as Sharif's flight from London touched down early on Monday.

Meanwhile Human Rights watch said that Pakistan should immediately release hundreds of opposition activists rounded up in a crackdown ahead of the planned return of former premier Nawaz Sharif.

The New York-based organisation added that President Pervez Musharraf should not seek to undermine Pakistan's legal system by having Sharif himself locked up on Monday, when he is expected to arrive in Islamabad.

"General Musharraf is attempting to bolster his increasingly shaky military-backed government by repackaging himself as a democrat," said Ali Dayan Hasan, South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"But rights-respecting leaders don't lock up hundreds of people who merely want to participate in their country's political process."

Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party says that around 2,000 of its supporters have been locked up during the past week, including hundreds overnight.

"The government should release arbitrarily detained opposition activists immediately and allow them to peacefully welcome Nawaz Sharif freely and without threat of violence," said Hasan.

Human Rights Watch said that in an August judgment overturning Sharif's exile, Pakistan's Supreme Court had ordered the authorities not to impede the ex-PM's return to the country.

Islamabad, Monday, AFP.