ISLAMABAD - Pakistani police fired teargas at supporters of the countryÂ’s sacked chief justice protesting outside his official residence in the capital Islamabad on Sunday, witnesses said. The protestors, including lawyers, political party workers and civil society activists, were stopped by riot police at the barbed barricade erected outside the residence of deposed supreme court chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.Police fired teargas at the protestors to disperse them and both sides threw stones at each other, an AFP photographer said. The protestors wanted to march towards ChaudhryÂ’s residence and present him with flowers, but police stopped them, he said.
Lawyers across Pakistan observed ‘black flag week’ to press for Chaudhry’s reinstatement.
President Pervez Musharraf sacked Chaudhry on March 9 last year on misconduct charges but the Supreme Court reinstated him in July. In November Musharraf again sacked Chaudhry and other judges under emergency rule, fearing they might disqualify him for contesting presidential election while being army chief and president at same time.
Chaudhry and his family have been living under house arrest at the official residence of the Supreme Court chief justice in a heavily-guarded government residential area of Islamabad since November.