Elections have been cancelled and up to 500 people arrested after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency on Saturday.

Elections have been cancelled and up to 500 people arrested after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency on Saturday, in the face of widespread international opposition.

The elections, due in January, might now be delayed by "up to a year", said Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz yesterday but he declined to say how long the emergency would last.

The drastic measures have been criticised by a host of foreign governments. Both America and Britain are reviewing aid packages to Pakistan in light of its decision to suspend its constitution. Mr Aziz has confirmed that Pakistan police have rounded up between 400 and 500 people, including opposition leaders and human rights commissioners.

President Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999, said he acted in response to rising Islamist militancy in nuclear-armed Pakistan and what he called a paralysis of government by judicial interference. "I cannot allow this country to commit suicide," he said in an address to the nation, after suspending the constitution and purging the Supreme Court of judges opposed to him.

Diplomats and Pakistanis have accused him of preventing the Supreme Court invalidating his October 6 re-election by parliament while still army chief.

A lawyers' movement that emerged in the vanguard of an anti-government campaign last March has called for a countrywide strike today to protest against General Musharraf's actions.