The brutal show of force by Pakistani authorities came a day after the Supreme Court dismissed challenges to key U.S. ally Musharraf’s eligibility for the presidential poll, in a major victory over the opposition.

Around three dozen people were injured and a similar number arrested in the violent protests outside the election commission building in the capital Islamabad and in separate rallies in Lahore.

The commission said it had approved Musharraf’s candidacy for another five-year term, and those of two rivals, after scrutinizing their nomination papers, while rejecting 37 other applicants.

“The other candidates raised objections to Musharraf’s nomination but they were not accepted,” commission secretary Kanwar Dilshad told AFP.

Musharraf’s rivals are Wajihuddin Ahmad, an ex-judge who refused to swear allegiance to Musharraf after the 1999 coup in which he seized power, and the vice chairman of Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, Makhdoom Amin Fahim.

Chanting “Go Musharraf, go!” around 900 lawyers tried to approach the commission from the nearby Supreme Court but riot police with shields and helmets blocked their way and scuffles broke out, an AFP reporter said.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and other government stalwarts were at the election commission during the scrutiny. Television footage showed some of them watching the violence from the lobby of the building.

Protesters dragged Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azeem from a car as he tried to leave the commission and hit him several times, before police stepped in and whisked him away.

At least two lawyers and a journalist were seen with blood coming from head wounds, one of them after being hit by a stone thrown by the police. Several ambulances rushed to the scene.

Aitzaz Ahsan, the main lawyer for Pakistan’s Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry during Chaudhry’s battle against Musharraf’s attempts to sack him earlier this year, was among those beaten.

“The brutality of General Musharraf is being seen worldwide. Only the blind governments of the United States and Britain cannot see it,” Ahsan told AFP.

Three of the country’s biggest private news channels, Geo, Aaj and ARYONE, said that the government had taken them off air during the protests to stop them showing the violence.

Police said the crackdown was justified.

“There is a ban on gatherings of five or more people in the capital territory and we are not going to allow anyone (to) flout this law,” a senior Islamabad police official told AFP.

Police fired tear gas at another 500 lawyers who rallied in Lahore to protest the beatings of their colleagues in Islamabad. Eight were arrested, officials said.

Musharraf filed his nomination papers for the elections on Thursday and is almost certain to win, given that the election involves the national and provincial parliaments, in which his allies hold a majority.

Opposition lawyer Tariq Mahmood said Musharraf’s nomination would be challenged in the Supreme court on Monday, when lawyers will also observe a complete strike throughout the country.

Musharraf has been on a collision course with lawyers since his botched bid to oust chief judge Chaudhry in March.

He faces further trouble on Oct. 18 when former premier Benazir Bhutto has vowed to return from self imposed exile. Talks on a possible power-sharing deal between Musharraf and Bhutto have stalled.

Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister whom Musharraf ousted eight years ago, will make another attempt to return to Pakistan from exile around the same date, his brother said in a television interview.

Sharif was deported to Saudi Arabia on September 10 hours after returning to Pakistan from London.

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