A general strike shut down Karachi and several other Pakistani cities today to protest against the Government's handling of clashes that left 41 people dead over the weekend as the crisis over the country's judicial independence deepened.

Karachi, a city of 12 million people, was at a standstill while the shops were closed and the streets were quiet in Quetta and Peshawar. More than 2,500 lawyers rallied against the government of General Pervez Musharraf in Lahore. In Islamabad, an official from Pakistan's Supreme Court was shot dead in his home.

Opposition groups blame the police and security forces for largely staying out of clashes between pro and anti-government mobs in Karachi on Saturday and Sunday, where cars and motorcycles were set on fire and gunfire exchanged in riots that touched on the city's unstable ethnic differences. More than 150 people were hurt.

Azhar Faruqi, Karachi's police chief, said today that the situation in the city had improved with the strike and the deployment of 3,000 Rangers, Pakistani paramilitaries with orders to shoot rioters on sight. “The city is totally paralysed," he said. "Shops are closed and very little public transport is on the roads. People are scared."

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There are now widespread demands for General Musharraf to hang up his uniform and give up power and my hunch is that he will not last the year

Zahid Hussain

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Mr Faruqi defended the handling of the weekend's riots, in which groups of Karachi's Urdu-speaking Mohajirs, supporters of the pro-Government Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), fought with members of the city's Pashtun community, traditional opponents of the General Musharraf's regime.

The fighting, described in the Pakistani press today as the country's most serious political violence for 20 years, marked a worrying development in the ongoing confrontation between Pakistan's military-run Government and its judiciary.

The crisis, considered the gravest threat to General Musharraf's rule since he took power in 1999, began on March 9 when he suspended one of the country's most senior judges, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, for allegedly abusing his office.

Mr Chaudhry and his supporters have appealed against the suspension, presenting a petition to Pakistan's Supreme Court and claiming that General Musharraf is seeking to weaken the court system ahead of trying to renew his five-year term of office later this year, a move that may face legal challenges.

In Islamabad, the legal process to settle the dispute between Mr Chaudhry and the Government was delayed again as one of the 14 judges chosen to sit on the case refused to take part. He will be replaced, perhaps as early as tomorrow, lawyers for Mr Chaudhry said.

The judge spent part of the day visiting the home of Syed Hammad Raza, a senior registrar of Pakistan's Supreme Court, who was shot dead this morning by gunmen at his door. Police have dismissed links between the shooting and the wider political crisis but Mr Raza's brother disputed that theory.

"It was a targeted killing, it was not a robbery... We need justice," said Khalid Ali Shah as speculation ran that Mr Raza was killed by pro-government extremists because he was brought with Mr Chaudry from the judge's home province of Baluchistan when he was appointed to Pakistan's top court.

“You called him to Islamabad. You should have protected him, and now my children need protection as well,” Shadana Raza, the official's widow, told Mr Chaudry when he visited the house today.

At a press conference in Lahore today, lawyers for Mr Chaudhry blamed the Government, the MQM and local authorities in Karachi's Sindh province for provoking the weekend's violence by refusing to let Mr Chaudhry out of the city's airport. The judge, who has held rallies across Pakistan since his suspension, was on his way to a meeting of the Sindh High Court Bar when he was stopped.

His objections were echoed in the voices of thousands of lawyers who took to the streets in Lahore today. Human rights activists and opposition party members joined the protest, which burned effigies and carried banners reading: “Go Musharraf Go!” and “Death to Altaf Hussain", the leader of the MQM.

The Pakistani press has also criticised the Government, with The Daily Times condemning the General Musharraf for allowing “brutal action" to be taken against the weekend's demonstrations.

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