ISLAMABAD, June 5: Hundreds of opposition political activists and students were detained across Punjab in a crackdown that began overnight and continued on Tuesday ahead of countywide protests called by lawyers, opposition leaders and police sources said.

Opposition parties reported continued police raids on residences and offices of their leaders in what they see as a move against protest rallies called for Thursday by bar associations to protest against the latest government curbs imposed on the electronic media and in support of suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

However, no leading political figure was reported detained until late on Tuesday evening.

No exact figure of the detainees was immediately available, though Pakistan People’s Party secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf told a news conference in Islamabad that hundreds of PPP workers were picked up while Pakistan Muslim League-N information secretary Ahsan Iqbal put the number of his party members detained at 550.

The number of those taken into custody in Lahore alone is stated to be well over 100.

Police in Lahore denied that the provincial government had ordered an anti-opposition crackdown.

But they said district police officers were directed about a week ago to prepare lists of political activists who they feared could ‘make trouble’ in rallies.

The police also said those picked up were detained for one to three months under sections 3 and 16 of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance and that they had been sent or were being sent to lockup in jail.

Political parties said most of detainees had been lodged at police stations across the province and had not so far been told of reasons of their detention.

The parties alleged that homes of their workers were raided for arrests but the families were not served with any warrant or orders for detention.

A prominent feature of the crackdown was that no key leader of any political party, except Labour Party Pakistan secretary-general Farooq Tariq, was picked up by police.

Most of the detainees were local leaders, including district amirs of the Jamaat-i-Islami and union council nazims, deputy nazims or members of other opposition parties.

RAWALPINDI: Law-enforcement agencies launched the crackdown in Rawalpindi and its suburbs on Tuesday and took at least 85 opposition party activists in pre-emptive detention after the PPP announced a protest on Thursday in support of Justice Chaudhry and against the media curbs, official sources said.

A senior police official told Dawn on condition of anonymity that dozens of activists of the PML-N, the PPP, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf had been rounded up in the early hours of Tuesday.

Most opposition activists and leaders have gone into hiding to avoid being arrested.

The activists detained in Rawalpindi included Babu Rashid, Asad Mughal, Qazi Sultan Mehmood, Raja Jahandad, Sardar Nasim, Ilyas Subhani and Rashid Mir.

MURREE: The Murree police raided the houses of various political activists, including PPP and PML-N office-bearers. PML-N's Raja Ehsan Nawaz and Dr Munir were arrested and kept in Barian police post of Murree Tehsil but a mob managed to get Dr Munir freed while police shifted Mr Ehsan Nawaz to some unknown place.The Murree Bar Association staged a protest demonstration in front of Tehsil courts against the government's new curbs on the media and was also joined by local journalists.

Bar Association president Nazir Abbasi condemned the government's policies against the media and the crackdown against political workers and said such actions could not help what he called President Musharraf's ‘unconstitutional’ government.

CHAKWAL: Police in Chakwal town raided houses of opposition workers on Tuesday and arrested five of them.

They are: Local PPP senior vice-president Dr Ali Hasnain Naqvi, Jamaat-i-Islami Chakwal chapter president Hafiz Abdul Rauf, Chaudhry Ahmed Khan of the MMA, Raja Sajid Iqbal of the PML-N and Mohammad Ahsan of the PPP.

Officials said the activists had been detained for a period of one month on the orders of the Punjab home department.

Hundreds of political activists and workers of opposition parties in Chakwal have gone underground to escape arrest.

ATTOCK: Fourteen local leaders and activists of opposition parties were arrested in Attock district in a surprise move that began in the early hours of Tuesday, political sources said.

TAXILA: In Taxila, police raided the houses of more than two dozen opposition leaders and workers but succeed to detain only three of them.