NEW DELHI — Pakistani police arrested hundreds of lawyers, human-rights activists and opposition politicians Sunday in an apparent bid to ward off protests over President Pervez Musharraf's weekend declaration of a national state of emergency and firing of the country's Supreme Court chief.

Pakistan's lawyers, who have become leading players in the country's pro-democracy movement this year, said they are planning rallies at Islamabad's Supreme Court and at district courts nationwide today to protest Musharraf's suspension of the constitution and what they called his coup against the country's high court, which had been expected to rule next week on whether the president's recent election to another term was constitutional.

Opponents had challenged whether Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless military coup, was allowed to run for president while serving as army chief.

The situation has resonance outside the nation. Musharraf is considered a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Islamic militants have gained strength in recent months as he has been engulfed in a political crisis.

"If the nation does not rise against the blunder of this general, then the very existence of the country is at stake, and democracy and human rights will be gone," Rana Sana Ullah Khan, an opposition politician and lawyer in Faisalabad, Pakistan's third-largest city, said in a telephone interview Sunday.

He said police carried out at least 150 overnight raids in Faisalabad, arresting nearly 100 lawyers and opposition figures, but those like him who had so far evaded the sweep were planning to travel to Islamabad today, or to protest at district courts if they could not reach the capital.

The deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who earlier defied Musharraf's efforts to fire him, was confined to his cordoned-off home in the capital, with no one allowed to approach, according to wire reports.

Arrests were reported in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and other major cities, aimed primarily at prominent lawyers. Among those detained were national and regional leaders of Pakistan's bar association and the president of the Lahore High Court, said Asma Jahangir, a human-rights activist and lawyer who was put under house arrest for three months.

"We believe that Musharraf has to be taken out of the equation and a government of national reconciliation put in place," she said in a statement that warned that in coming days, "the scene is likely to get uglier" in Pakistan.

In suspending the country's constitution Saturday, Musharraf cited "interference" by the country's judiciary and growing violence by Islamic extremists as national threats. U.S. and other Western officials quickly condemned the move as a step backward in Pakistan's faltering progress toward ending eight years of military rule and restoring civilian democracy.

Tariq Azim, the country's deputy minister of information, confirmed Sunday that parliamentary elections planned for January probably would be pushed back.

Pakistani opposition figures said Sunday that besides arresting scores of lawyers, the government had asked national and district judges to take new oaths of office over the weekend in an apparent effort to sweep out opposition figures. Judges who refused to sign the oath were removed from office, said Syed Kamran Zafar, an official of the Pakistan People's Party, an opposition party led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Musharraf, who clearly views the country's increasingly independent judiciary as a political threat, "wants to perpetuate his stranglehold at all costs," Zafar said. He said police were deployed throughout Islamabad on Sunday in an apparent attempt to intimidate potential protesters.

Over the weekend the government also passed tough new media laws that provide for a jail sentence of up to three years for anyone who "defames and brings into ridicule or disrepute the head of state."

Bhutto said Sunday on NBC that she and other opposition party officials are meeting to consider what form of protest might be most effective. She did not say whether she would participate in rallies being organized by the country's lawyers.

Opposition figures predicted Musharraf's government would move quickly to suppress any public protests.

"I think he will come upon them with an iron first. I do not have any misgivings in my mind about that," Zafar said. Police officials in Pakistan confirmed they had orders to quell any public disturbances.

Fears of violence and arrest are likely to keep most Pakistanis from joining street protests, Zafar and others predicted. But "because a man isn't willing to go to jail doesn't mean he is with Musharraf," Ullah Khan said. "No one is with him now. Every man is against this step."

One unintended consequence of Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule may be to unite what were disparate opposition movements around the country — from civil society groups, lawyers and politicians to Islamic hard-liners, analysts said. Islamist leader Qazi Hussein Ahmed reportedly was among those Sunday calling for street protests to oust what he called the country's "military dictator."

In a television interview Sunday, Bhutto did not rule out moving ahead with earlier plans to try to work out a political agreement with Musharraf under which she might become the country's prime minister.

"If he was to restore the constitution and retire as chief of army staff, that ... would lend confidence that he was once again considering the democratic route," she said. But without those preconditions, it would be "very difficult for me to work with a military leader," she said.