SHARIF 'TAKEN TO PAKISTAN JAIL' !

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been arrested and flown to prison after returning home from exile, officials and eye-witnesses say. Mr Sharif, who was ousted by President Pervez Musharraf in a 1999 coup, said he was returning to mount a challenge to the president ahead of elections. But on his arrival he was charged with money laundering and corruption and bundled into a helicopter.

Meanwhile Mr Sharif's supporters clashed with police in several cities. Mr Sharif arrived home weeks after Pakistan's Supreme Court affirmed his right to return. On board the plane which flew him home from London, Mr Sharif told the BBC he wanted to help restore the rule of law. "It's democracy versus dictatorship," he said. Once the plane arrived in Islamabad, paramilitary troops surrounded it and there was a stand-off on board as Mr Sharif refused to hand over his passport to immigration officials for nearly two hours.

I have a duty, I have a responsibility, I have a national obligation to fulfil at all costs and that is democracy -Nawaz Sharif.

Large numbers of police set up barricades on roads to prevent his supporters reaching the airport, while all domestic flights from Islamabad on Monday were listed as cancelled. There were reports of clashes between police and crowds of Mr Sharif's supporters in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and Attok, where shots were fired and several people were said to have been injured. One worker from Mr Sharif's Muslim League party (PML-N) told the BBC he and about 20 others had been badly beaten by police outside the airport.

On Sunday, the party said more than 2,000 supporters had been arrested by the Pakistan authorities, and several hundred more were picked up in the Rawalpindi-Islamabad region overnight. A provincial police official said several hundred "trouble-makers" had been detained. Almost the entire leadership of the party in Rawalpindi has been detained by the police, and dozens more were arrested while attempting to lead party workers towards the airport on Monday morning, says the BBC's M Ilyas Khan.

BBC NEWS REPORT.