ISLAMABAD, April 9 (AP) Hundreds of people protesting an assault on a former cabinet minister and close supporter of President Pervez Musharraf blocked roads and burned tires in his hometown on Wednesday, police said.

About 300 people gathered at a busy intersection in Mianwali, setting tires ablaze and blocking traffic to condemn the Tuesday attack on former parliamentary affairs minister Sher Afgan Niazi, a police officer said. Television footage showed thick black fumes billowing from tires set on fire Wednesday in Mianwali as dozens of men, some wielding sticks, milled about. In an overnight protest against lawyers, dozens of Niazis supporters set several rooms on fire at the Mianwali courts, Razzaq said. No injuries were reported. Authorities were holding talks with protest leaders to keep things from getting out of control, he said.

Niazi was not seriously hurt in the Lahore attack after a mob of attorneys and others besieged him in an office for several hours. Aitzaz Ahsan, a prominent lawyer and president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), tried in vain to disperse the crowd and rescue Niazi. Ahsan announced later that he was resigning as SCBA president in protest.

The trouble began when irate protesters, including lawyers, jostled Niazi and tried to beat him with their hands and shoes when he emerged. Police bundled him into an ambulance which was stoned and had its ignition key stolen, forcing over-stretched security forces to push it away from the scene.

The attack on Niazi came a day after another close Musharraf associate, the outgoing chief minister of Sindh, was beaten with a shoe and heckled in the provincial legislature. The new coalition government, led by the parties of assassination victim Benazir Bhutto and another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, condemned the assault.