KARACHI, March 3: Police resorted to teargas shelling and baton-charge to prevent participants of a protest rally from heading towards the US consulate here on Friday.

Police claimed having arrested around a dozen protesters indulged in violence. However, a spokesman for the Imamia Students Organization (ISO), which had organized the rally against the visit to Pakistan by US President George Bush, said that 25 people had been picked up by the police.

The rally was taken out from the Numaish intersection. While passing through the streets of Saddar, the participants tried to march towards the US consulate but police stopped them near Zainab Market. The protesters pelted stones at the police which led to a clash between the two sides.

Police lobbed tear gas shells and applied baton-charge to disperse the agitators. Amid the skirmishes, some of the protesters managed to reach near the Metropole Hotel but were picked up.

Although the protesters ended their rally, some of them were chased up to the Numaish roundabout.

They took refuge in Mehfil Shah-i-Khurasan but police lobbed teargas shells to force them come out. Later, however, police withdrew from the area.

The ISO claimed that it had organized and led a peaceful rally from Mehfil Shah-i-Khurasan. As the participants headed towards the US consulate to register their protest against President Bush’s visit to Pakistan, police intervened to block their way at Zainab Market, a spokesman for the ISO said, adding that the protestors torched US and Danish flags and President Bush’s effigy.

He said that some of the participants of the rally managed to break the police barricades to reach a place near Metropole Hotel, where police resorted to shelling.

He claimed that at least 25 protesters had been picked up and sent to different police stations.