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LAHORE, Pakistan - Pakistan's opposition leader Nawaz Sharif defied house arrest Sunday to lead a banned mass protest bound for the capital as activists overwhelmed riot police, shaking government authority.
In the most violent scenes since the political crisis unfolded, protesters dismantled barricades and fought battles with riot police before a convoy of more than 100 vehicles streamed out of Lahore bound for Islamabad.
The former premier, the most popular political leader in the country, has tapped into massive disappointment with President Asif Ali Zardari and joined forces with lawyers to demand that the head of state reinstate sacked judges.
The crisis, which has flung the nuclear-armed Muslim nation into further chaos, began on February 25 when the Supreme Court disqualified Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif from contesting elections and holding public office.
"It is a golden moment in Pakistan's history. It is a prelude to a revolution," Sharif told flagship private television channel Geo in a telephone interview, from inside his bullet-proof vehicle.
Crowds surged ahead of Sharif's convoy to mob two buses blocking the route, forcing drivers to rescue the vehicles. At the exit from Lahore, his political supporters removed barricades that blocked the route.
Thousands of well-wishers cheered Sharif as his convoy of buses, cars, pick-up trucks and motorbikes crossed the main bridge out of Lahore.
The showdown is the worst crisis facing Zardari, coming six months after he was elected with an overwhelming majority as he rode high on sympathy after the assassination of his wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
"For the first time in the country's political history, protesters have openly defied police and removed huge barricades," Jaffer Ahmed, director of the Pakistan Study Centre at Karachi University, told AFP.
"It is an anarchy-like situation. The government has lost its credentials and its moral support. President Zardari acted on wrong advice and took wrong decisions which led to present chaos," he said.
Former Pakistan cricketer turned politician Imran Khan told the BBC that the "unprecedented" situation amounted to "a soft revolution in Pakistan."
Stating that he was "somewhere near Rawalpindi," a city roughly 270 kilometres (167 miles) north-west of Lahore, Khan said "there are police in my house with an arrest warrant against me."
Khan, who heads the marginal political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, said he also sought to defy the authorities and join the convoy to Islamabad. "I am trying to avoid being caught because I want to lead the procession (Monday) from Rawalpindi."
Riot police wearing body armour baton-charged and fired tear gas in pitched street battles with stone-throwing mobs, in which witnesses said more than a dozen people were wounded.
"The main GPO Square looked like a battleground. I saw at least two ambulances ferrying casualties to the hospital," said resident Hanif Goraya, as Sharif supporters brought the city centre to a standstill.
"Police fired scores of shells, inside and outside the Lahore High Court building. A shell hit my left thigh, I received stitches. The injured include lawyers, political workers and some police officials," he said.
Police openly admitted they had been unable to hold back the crowd.
"We tried our best to stop the crowd but they did not stop," Lahore city police chief Habib-ur Rehman told AFP.
The turmoil could not come at a worse time for Pakistan, a central front in the US fight against Islamist militancy that is facing a wave of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked violence.
The unpopular president has come under huge US pressure to end the standoff and watched his Pakistan People's Party (PPP) split over the crisis, which saw the resignation of his confidante, Information Minister Sherry Rehman.
Analysts warned that continued violence could see a reluctant military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half its 62-year existence, intervene.
"It seems violence will take over and compel the army to intervene at some stage," defence and political analyst Talat Masood told AFP.
"The army is extremely hesitant. But it is giving Zardari a firm message to come to terms with the opposition to avert violence," he said.
A countrywide protest against a decision to sack independent-minded chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and some 60 other judges in 2007, ultimately forced Zardari's predecessor Pervez Musharraf to quit in August 2008. --AFP
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