Police on Wednesday used batons and teargas to disperse hundreds of supporters of Benazir Bhutto as they staged a protest near the Parliament building in Islamabad against the emergency rule, minutes after the former premier called for mass demonstrations against the military regime.
The protest came while a special session of the National Assembly, lower house of Pakistan Parliament, was underway to discuss the emergency clamped by President Pervez Musharraf on November 3.
The demonstrators, including Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians, tried to push past barricades erected near the National Assembly, chanting anti-Musharraf slogans.
Police used batons and teargas to break the protest, witnesses said.
The area, where the protest was held, is heavily guarded with hundreds of Pakistani Rangers and paramilitary personnel deployed there.
The protest came minutes after Bhutto, during a press conference in Islamabad, threatened to launch mass demonstrations against the regime if the general failed to revive the Constitution and release political prisoners soon.