akistan cleric Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri threatens long battle against government

|Reuters : Islamabad, Tue Jan 15 2013, 15:31 hrs

Police fired in the air and used teargas to disperse followers of influential cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri who gathered for a protest in the Pakistani capital after they clashed with security forces.

Footage on television showed policemen in riot gear firing in the air and using batons to push back dozens of supporters of Qadri, who lobbed stones at them.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the media that security forces fired in the air after Qadri's supporters pelted them with stones.

Qadri's spokesman Shahid Mursaleen claimed in an email statement that trouble erupted after police tried to arrest the cleric. "Once they realised that the crowd is not letting them come near him, they (police) opened fire in the air which lasted for 10 minutes," he claimed.

Mursaleen further claimed police fired at Qadri's car andtried to smash its windows. "The crowd ran after the police with sticks when they realised the police (was trying) to attack their leader. The police ran away," he said.

His claims could not be independently confirmed. The spokesman said Qadri, who was in a portable shelter, was safe.

Qadri, who heads the Tehrik Minhaj-ul-Quran, marched into Jinnah Avenue in the heart of Islamabad with tens of thousands of supporters and gave the government hours to quit and to dissolve the national and provincial assemblies. He declared

that he was leading a "people's democratic revolution".

The cleric's party had signed an agreement with the Islamabad administration to hold a peaceful protest a few kilometres from the National Assembly, but the cleric surprised authorities by inciting his followers to remove barricades and move towards a square near parliament Qadri also incited policemen and paramilitary personnel to defy their officers, saying the officials would be removed by tomorrow.