LAHORE, March 16: Police arrested 190 political leaders, activists and lawyers on Friday who tried to take out processions in Lahore and other parts of Punjab to condemn the ‘suspension’ of the chief justice.

The police tear-gassed and baton-charged political activists at Neela Gumbad in Lahore and arrested around 100 of them, including Punjab PML-N president Sardar Zulfikar Khosa, MNAs Pervaiz Malik and Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, MPAs Afzal Khokhar, Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor, Dr Asad Ashraf, Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman, Ehsanullah Waqas, Rana Mashood, and Ameerul Azeem of the MMA and Ehsan Rasheed of the PTI.

They were bundled into prison vans, in some cases after having been roughed up by personnel of law-enforcement agencies who were present there in large numbers in uniform and in civvies.

There was no official word whether cases would be registered against them.

Earlier, the police arrested around 200 activists and leaders of opposition parties, including Liaquat Baloch of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, from their homes or offices in various parts of the city since Thursday evening.

Over three dozens activists were arrested in Gujranwala. Among them were former federal minister Ghulam Dastagir Khan and former provincial minister Barrister Usman Ibrahim. The rest of the arrests were made in Faisalabad, Sargodha and Mandi Bahauddin.