Police shoot 3 dead in riot-hit Pakistan

Three protesters were shot dead and four wounded today when pro-Taliban demonstrations in Pakistan turned violent.

Police opened fire as demonstrators tried to block a road and railway line in Punjab province, while teargas was used to quell disturbances in Karachi.

Protests were staged in answer to a call by hardline Islamic organisations to paralyse the country with demonstrations and traffic jams.

Despite a government ban on large street gatherings, a crowd tried to block the rail line and main trunk road through Punjab at Sargodha.

As police tried to disperse the crowd, scuffles broke out and shots were fired. Officers fired on the protesters, a local doctor said.

In Karachi, scene of some of the worst recent unrest, an angry mob chanting anti-US slogans marched through the city. Shots were fired by security forces, but the march was halted by salvos of teargas.

Peshawar also saw disturbance, but it seemed that elsewhere in Pakistan the call for mass action was largely ignored. Today is, in any case, a national holiday to celebrate the birth of Pakistani poet Mohammed Iqbal, and most shops and businesses are closed.

In the capital Islamabad, a call by the radical Afghan Defence Committee for a march on government centres appeared to have gone unanswered. The government took the precaution of rounding up dozens of Islamic and political leaders - one source estimated close to 100 - early today and security forces were deployed in strength throughout the city.

? British journalist Christina Lamb of The Sunday Telegraph has been ordered to leave Pakistan, where she was covering the Afghan conflict.

She was told to leave Quetta near the Afghan border to catch a flight from Islamabad, after provincial Home Secretary Azmat Orakzai said she was "involved in mysterious activities".