Pakistani police clash with lawyers over judge

By Sil Khan

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani police clashed for a second day on Saturday with lawyers protesting at government moves to sack the country's top judge as President Pervez Musharraf said conspirators were stirring trouble.

The suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary on March 9 has outraged lawyers and united disparate opposition parties against Musharraf who looks set to seek another term late this year.

His suspension has fuelled suspicions that Musharraf feared the independent-minded judge would oppose any move by him to retain his role as army chief, which constitutionally the president should relinquish this year.

Police fired teargas and rubber bullets, detained numerous opposition activists and ransacked a television station on Friday during protests by lawyers and opposition supporters in Islamabad.

Newspapers said the disturbances had damaged the government's credibility and the action against the judiciary and the media boded ill for upcoming elections. International rights and media groups also condemned the police action.

But Musharraf told a rally plotters trying to heap blame on him were behind the raid on the television station.

Earlier on Saturday, hundreds of lawyers were meeting in the High Court in the city of Lahore to discuss the case when police outside fired teargas and hit out with batons to stop a group of lawyers getting in, witnesses said.

Lawyers in business suits poured out of the meeting and hurled stones at police who threw them back. Police chasing stone-throwers ransacked nearby offices, witnesses said.