Police lathicharged and arrested over a 1,000 lawyers who took to the streets across Pakistan on Monday in protest against the imposition of emergency even as rumours that President Pervez Musharraf [Images] had been put under house arrest swept the country.

The country's main stock market dropped more than four per cent over rumours that Musharraf had been put under house arrest by the newly appointed Army Vice Chief Ashfaq Kiyani.

The Pakistan government denied the rumours and said the military ruler was at his official residence in Islamabad.

"It's nonsense, sheer baseless rumour," Musharraf's spokesman Rashid Qureshi said.

"It's a complete hoax, totally baseless and malicious. People will treat it with the total contempt it deserves," Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azeem said, adding, Musharraf "laughed off the rumour."

Police brutally beat and arrested about 1,000 lawyers who had gathered for a protest outside the high court in Lahore [Images].

Journalists covering the event were also beaten. Police lobbed teargas shells and used batons to beat up the protesting lawyers and journalists.

This was the single largest protest by the lawyers. There were protests also in front of smaller district courts in Islamabad and Rawalpindi by groups of lawyers.

Some 30 lawyers were arrested in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Some journalists were detained near a court in Quetta.

In Peshawar, lawyers blocked the office rooms of judges in courts. All access roads to Supreme Court in Islamabad were blocked by barricades and barbed wire.