RAWALPINDI/SWABI: Hundreds of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) protesters, led by Khyber Pakhutnkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, managed to move towards Islamabad on Monday af ter battling tear gas and pushing aside shipping containers and other obstacles placed on roads in Swabi, and were 24km away from the federal capital territory at midnight.

The chief minister persisted with his march towards the capital after riot police attempted to stop his convoy in Swabi. The protesters, while battling tear gas and obstacles, managed to push through the mainblockade set up on their way at the Haroonabad bridge.

Later, the convoy reached the Burhan interchange, where PTI workers were again briefly shelled with tear gas. Punjab police chief Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera was also present on the spot.

As night fell, the PTI activists used cranes to remove various obstacles, including containers, placed on the route to Islamabad.

Police and Frontier Constabulary personnel had earlier used tear gas to disperse thousands of stick-wielding workers whenthey tried to remove barricades put in place by police.

From Burhan, the convoy moved towards Pather Pahari where Attock police had put 13 containers filled with sand. Police and constabulary personnel were deployed on a bridge to stop the convoy and police were also stationed on hilltops to engage the protesters.

According to police, the convoy of between 40 and 50 vehicles crossed Burhan and reached Pather Pahari at about 10.40pm.

There, the protesters set fire to dry bushes on both sides of the road.

Police in Rawalpindi were put on high alert amid fears that the PTI convoy might turn towards the city to reach Islamabad.

Punjab police used tear gas and batons and fired rubber bullets to push back the activists who were using sticks and slingshots to hurl back stones.

Chief Minister Khattak and some of his cabinet colleagues stayed put in their vehicles as their loyalists braved tear gas, occasionally surfacing to galvanise the workers to surge ahead and not relent.

Mr Khattak went ahead with leading the march despite a written warning from the federal interior secretary to the KP chief secretary on Monday. The province`s top of ficial was asked to bring to the attention of the chief minister and his cabinet colleagues that proceeding to Islamabad with armed personal guards would be a `grave violation of law and in complete breach of public order since the administration of federal capital and the Ministry of Interior has not accorded any permission for any such protest in Islamabad`.

`Given the serious security and terror threats confronted at the moment, an added dimension is also clearly present against any such congregation,` the federal secretary wrote.

It was not clear whether the chief secretary brought the matter to the chief minister`s notice but it was clear that CM Khattak did not pay heed to the federal government`s advice.

Cranes and shovels brought in to help activists remove mud and containers parked astride the motorway were pressed into action late in the evening as the mob lit fire on the road, thickening the air further with billowing smoke.

Men from the Frontier Constabulary, called in from KP by the federal government, were there to assist the police just close to the boundary of Punjab on the River Indus.

An estimated 7,000 PTI workers had assembled at a camp office in Swabi, but as the march began their number dwindled to about 3,000, a far cry from what theorganisers had hoped to bring in about 25,000.

But the number did not dent their enthusiasm as the activists surged ahead, most on foot, followed by cars, vans, pick-up trucks and at least two ambulances.

The PTI workers and police fought a pitched battle in the Hazro area, near the Indus, after police teargassed protesters trying to open roads by removing blockades.

Medics at a nearby rural health centre and the Bacha Khan Medical Complex, Shah Mansoor, said eight injured people were brought to the facilities. There were no serious injuries.

`The tear gas shells started to rain on us when we were approaching the blockade to remove containers,Malik Khalid Khan, a PTI councillor coming from the Badeni area of Mardan district, said. The intense shelling forced the PTI activists to double back to regain strength.

After the initial retreat, `groups of the protesters managed to sneak behind police to attack them, after which police personnel withdrew a few kilometres from the area,` Mr Khalid said.

Helicopters also hovered over the area to monitor the situation.

Mr Khattak briefly came out of his vehicle on the occasion. `Do not exhaust yourself here,` he said, urging his supporters to go slow.

Asia Khattak, a PTI district councillor from Peshawar, said that the protesters were determined toreach Islamabad despite all the hurdles.

Baton-wielding workers and of fice-bearers of the PTI also left Mansehra to take part in the protest.

Arrests, raids The Punjab police continued to carry out raids on the homes of PTI leaders and workers across the province in a bid to stop them from going to Islamabad to participate in the protest, Our Staff Reporter in Lahore adds.

Four MPAs and over 1,000 workers were rounded up in the province, while many known leaders escaped arrest and reached Banigala, where PTI chief Imran Khan`s home is located.

Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab AssemblyMian Mahmoodur Rasheed said that besides MPAs Abdul Majeed Niazi, Haji Javed Akhtar Ansari, Chaudhry Masood Shafgat Rubera and Waqas Hasan Moakal, several union council nazims and councillors had also been arrested.

A PML-Q spokesman claimed that dozens of the party`s workers were arrested, most of them in Gujrat.

The Pakistan Awami Tehreek`s spokesman also claimed the arrest of dozens of workers, but said that some of them had been released af terwards.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said 838 PTI workers had been arrested in the province under the Maintenance of Police Order law.