Pakistan: Street battle erupts as Long March begins in Lahore

Sunday, March 15: Independent media and direct reports from protestors say that a street battle has erupted at Lahore's GPO chowk (market) after police tried to disperse thousands of Long March participants gathering to advance on the capital Islamabad for the sit-in called for tomorrow by the lawyers' movement.
The police baton charged and tear gassed the crowd but it dispersed temporarily only to regroup again.

Geo News reports that the police attack "has turned Mall Road of Lahore into battle ground".
"Police started shelling when Ameer JI Punjab Liquat Baloch was heading towards GPO chowk. Women were also affected by the shelling. Police baton charge wounded several protestors."
Long March Twitter reports that protestors have started retaliating by throwing stones at the police and the crowd has even managed to move the bulk containers the police had used to block the roads. One triumphant protestor messaged: "Crowd overcomes all blockage and moves towards GPO chowk!"
An Associated Press report says that the clashes came after the government placed opposition leader Nawaz Sharif under house arrest.
"Hundreds of police surrounded the former prime minister's residence in the eastern city of Lahore before dawn on Sunday and detained him along with scores of his supporters.
"Officers showed party officials an order placing Sharif and his politician brother Shahbaz under house arrest for three days, party spokesman Pervaiz Rasheed said.
"Shahbaz and a host of other protest leaders went underground to dodge similar orders. Rao Iftikhar, a senior government official, said the list of those facing detention also included the head of Pakistan's main Islamist party and a leader of its activist lawyers.
"Lawyers and opposition party supporters had planned to gather Sunday near Lahore's main court complex before heading toward Islamabad to stage a mass sit-in front of Parliament, in defiance of a government ban.
"To thwart them, authorities parked trucks across major roads on the edge of the city, and riot police took up positions outside the railway station and government buildings.
"About 1,000 flag-waving demonstrators jumped police barricades to reach the courts. At one point, protesters pelted some of the hundreds of riot police ringing the area with rocks.
"An Associated Press reporter saw one officer led away with a head wound before his colleagues fired two rounds of tear gas, scattering the crowd.
"Television images also showed police commandos wearing flak jackets and armed with assault rifles apparently searching for Shahbaz in Rawalpindi, a city just south of the capital."
The government has put the army on standby and set up road blocks all around Lahore and along the way to Islamabad. Mobile or cell phone SMS services have been suspended in Islamabad.

Sources: Long March Seenreport, Geo News, Associated Press.