The Chief Justice of Pakistan has ordered three senior government officials to be suspended over a police crackdown on lawyers and journalists protesting against President Musharraf.

Today's ruling came as General Musharraf’s opponents prepared for further protests and legal challenges against his plan to run in a presidential election on Saturday while still serving as army chief.

It also coincided with a suicide bombing that killed 15 people in northwestern Pakistan – the latest in a series of increasingly bold and frequent attacks by Taleban and al-Qaeda militants.

General Musharraf looks set to win Saturday’s election, eight years after he seized power in a bloodless coup, but today’s developments show that his political crisis is far from over.

The court order came from Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, the Chief Justice whom General Musharraf tried unsuccessfully to dismiss in March, triggering his current problems. Mr Chaudhry summoned several officials to explain why police used batons and tear gas against protesters who gathered outside the Supreme Court and the Election Commission on Saturday.

Dozens were injured and local television stations were taken off the air when police broke up the crowd in what Pakistan’s media have dubbed “The Battle of Constitution Avenue”.

Footage of the violence was shown today on a screen set up in a courtroom packed with lawyers and journalists, some of them wearing bandages on their arms and heads. Doctors told the Supreme Court that Islamabad's hospitals treated 83 people, many for head injuries.

State-run media said that the casualties included 13 police officials, 31 journalists and two opposition MPs.

After considering the evidence, Mr Chaudhry ordered Syed Kamal Shah, the Interior Secretary, to suspend Islamabad’s city and district police chiefs as well as the head of the city administration. "It has been proved that the situation was handled indecently," Mr Chaudhry told the court.

The Government said that it had complied with the ruling and ordered an inquiry into the matter, in a timely victory for the lawyers and opposition politicians campaigning to restore civilian, democratic rule in Pakistan.

On Friday, the Supreme Court dismissed several legal challenges to General Musharraf’s dual posts and his plans to be re-elected by the current legislatures on Saturday. But the two other candidates in the election -– one of whom is a former Supreme Court judge -- are planning fresh challenges to his eligibility in the court today.

Lawyers’ groups also say that their members are staging a nationwide strike today to keep up the pressure on the President.

Opposition parties say their MPs will resign tomorrow from the federal and provincial assemblies, which together elect the president, to deny the poll any legitimacy.

General Musharraf is also facing an upsurge in violence in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas, where Taleban and al-Qaeda militants, including Osama bin Laden, are thought to be regrouping.

The latest attack came this morning when a suicide bomber, clad in a burka, killed at least 15 people at a crowded police checkpoint in North Waziristan, according to police. Some reports said that it was the first confirmed case of a woman suicide bomber in Pakistan, but others suggested the attacker was a man disguised in a burka.

Either way, it is likely to fuel concerns that the militants are gaining the upper hand in North and South Waziristan, which have seen almost daily attacks on Pakistani forces over the last month.

Pakistan has deployed some 90,000 troops to its tribal areas and along the border with Afghanistan since allying itself with the United States after the 9/11 attacks.

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