A number people were injured in clashes with police in the Pakistani city of Lahore Monday as lawyers' nationwide protested against the suspension of the chief justice by President Pervez Musharraf.

Riot police used wooden batons to drive hundreds of striking lawyers back into the court complex after they tried to take the protest onto the streets in the capital of the Punjab province.

Protestors also pelted police with stones, ARY television said, showing scenes of police chasing away people with bleeding wounds.

Other cities also witnessed protests by lawyers demanding full reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who was relieved of his duties Friday.

In Karachi, scores of protesting lawyers burned an effigy of Musharraf outside the main courtrooms.

Musharraf referred the head of the Supreme Court for investigation following allegations of 'misconduct and misuse of authority.'

Opposition forces condemned the move and said the judge was removed for his judicial activism.

Chaudhry was effectively being held under house arrest at his official residence in Islamabad with little or no contact with the outside world, media reports said.

But Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao Sunday denied that he was being held incommunicado and said he could freely receive visitors.

Musharraf has asked the Supreme Judicial Council to adjudicate the case against Chaudhry, a controversial figure who earned a reputation for taking a firm line on government misdemeanors and human rights abuses since his appointment in June 2005.

He also annulled the privatisation of a giant steel mill in Karachi and ordered national security services to produce dozens of missing persons thought to have been illegally detained.

Chaudhry is due to appear before the five-member judicial council Tuesday to respond to the allegations, which had not been officially made public.