Angry protests by thousands of lawyers in Lahore and other cities Monday demonstrated the first organized resistance to the emergency rule imposed by the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. But the abrupt arrest of many of them threatened to weaken their challenge.

The strength of the crackdown by baton-wielding police officers who pummeled lawyers and then hauled them by the legs and arms into police wagons in Lahore showed the resolve of the Musharraf government to silence its fiercest opponents.

At one point, lawyers and police clashed in a pitched battle, with lawyers standing on the roof of the High Court throwing stones at the police below, and the police hurling them back. Some of the lawyers were bleeding from the head, and some passed out in the clouds of tear gas.

How long the lawyers could keep up their revolt without the support of opposition political parties, which so far have been lying low, remained in question.

There were conflicting estimates of the number of lawyers in jail in Lahore Monday night. Some lawyers said that as many as 500 to 700 of their colleagues were in custody, scattered in groups at various police cells and jails.

In all, about 2,000 people have been rounded up since the imposition of emergency rule Saturday night, lawyers and analysts said.

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