As the Pakistan Supreme Court heard petitions challenging President Prevez Musharraf's re-election bid, an angry lawyer blackened the face of the General's counsel in full media glare. Government Advocate Ahmed Raza Kasuri was left stunned as lawyer Khurshid Ahmed, waiting at the entrance of the Supreme Court where a battery of TV cameras were lined up ahead of the hearing, lunged towards him and sprayed black paint on his face while shouting slogans against the Musharraf regime.

Kasuri, who is defending Musharraf on the spate of petitions challenging the president holding dual offices and his plans to get re-elected in uniform, claimed that the paint contained acid. Adding to the high drama, scores of flag-waving and slogan shouting Opposition workers hurled stones at mounted riot police, who tried to stop them from breaking the barricades and reaching the court.

Over two dozen protesters, mostly from the Islamist alliance Muttahida-Majlis-e-Amal, kept on shouting slogans like "Go, Musharraf, go!" The police finally bundled the protestors into police vehicles and whisked them away. The Supreme Court is hearing a series of legal challenges by opposition parties and lawyers' groups to the October 6 presidential election.

An angry Kasuri, who was wearing glasses, was seen cleaning his face and termed the incident as an "attack on democracy" and the right of lawyers to represent clients of their choice.

Kasuri also questioned the credibility of the movement being led by lawyers' outfits and hit out at the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association and his colleagues Ali Ahmed Kurd and Aitezaz Ahesan, who successfully defended Chief Justice Iftikar M Chaudhry after he was suspended by Musharraf.

Mallik later said the paint attack was unjustified but added "Kasuri virtually asked for it. He (Kasuri) went bonkers. When you do not have an argument you go bonkers," was Mallik's response against Kasuri's outburst against him.

Kasuri had recently opposed Ahesan's inclusion in the three-member panel of Amicus Curies formed to advise the court in the cases relating to dual offices of Musharraf.