The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Islamabad

Riot police have blocked former premier Nawaz Sharif from meeting Pakistan's deposed chief justice, who is under effective house arrest for refusing to endorse emergency rule, witnesses said Thursday.

Opposition leader Sharif was turned back by around 300 policemen manning concrete and barbed wire barricades near the Islamabad residence of Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, an AFP reporter saw.

Hundreds of Sharif's supporters chanted "Long live Nawaz Sharif" after their leader was turned back and burned a large poster of President Pervez Musharraf, who imposed a state of emergency on November 3.

"I have come here to express solidarity with the chief justice and other judges," Sharif told the crowd after police wielding batons and wearing helmets and body armour refused to let him through.

"I want to tell them that the entire nation stands by them. We will not rest until all these judges are restored to their pre-November 3 positions," he said.

Chaudhry was sacked as chief justice after refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to Musharraf under emergency legislation.

He was among 37 judges who were forcibly retired by the government for the same reason this week.

"All judges are virtually under house arrest. They can only move in the judges' enclave," said sacked Supreme Court judge Rana Bhagwandas, referring to the area which Sharif had tried to enter.

"Chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is completely under solitary confinement. Neither is he allowed to move in and outside his house nor can he meet anyone," Bhagwandas told Dawn News television by phone.

"When I talked to him, he regretted that police deployed at his house are not even allowing him and his wife to take a walk."

Bhagwandas also condemned the government for ordering the judges to leave their official houses, saying it was an "attempt to demoralise the judges."

Police prevented another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, from meeting Chaudhry last month.

Sharif and Bhutto have both recently returned from exile, and their parties are expected to finalise a joint list of demands Thursday which they say the government must meet to stop them boycotting elections next month.

The two opposition supremos agreed on Monday to join forces to press Musharraf to hold free and fair elections on January 8 and drop the state of emergency.

Musharraf has pledged to end the emergency on December 16 but Sharif said the government was not playing fair. Sharif's own candidacy for the polls was rejected by electoral officials on Monday.

"There is no level playing field," Sharif told reporters after meeting diplomats from several Muslim nations.

He said he would not go through the courts to fight against the rejection of his nomination papers, saying that he did not have any confidence in the judges installed since Chaudhry and his colleagues were sacked.

A court in the eastern city of Lahore meanwhile granted bail to Sharif's brother, Shahbaz, in a nine-year-old murder case.

Government sources said Shahbaz faces criminal charges in an anti-terrorism court for ordering the killing of five Islamic students during his 1997-99 tenure as chief minister in Punjab province.

Musharraf has been at loggerheads with the judiciary since he first tried to sack Chaudhry in March, a move that led to massive street protests and sent his popularity plummeting.

Critics say Musharraf's main motivation for imposing the emergency was to purge the Supreme Court of hostile judges amid fears that they would overturn his victory in an October 6 presidential election.

The new-look court rubber-stamped his election win last month and Musharraf was subsequently sworn in for a second term as president, albeit this time as a civilian after quitting his dual role as army chief.