Pakistani police arrested anti-government protesters at the weekend in what activists described as a crackdown on weeks-long sit-ins in the capital Islamabad.

However, the government insisted that police had only apprehended suspects in a recent attack on the state-run TV station.

Cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan is leading one of two major protests demanding the government’s resignation.

His Pakistan Movement for Justice (PTI) said a large number of party activists had been detained in overnight raids beginning late on Friday.

“We are suspending talks with the government over these arrests,” said PTI spokesman Jehanghir Tareen.

Anti-government cleric Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, who has been leading parallel demonstrations, said that police had also detained his supporters and that he too would be suspending talks over the arrests.

Pakistani news channels had earlier showed several detained supporters of Mr Qadri and Mr Khan arriving at a local court in two prison vans. 

PTI leaders and dozens of activists briefly clashed with police as they tried to break the locks of the vans to free the detainees.

Police eventually pushed them back and Islamabad police chief Tahir Alam warned that anyone attacking the police vans would be arrested.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Khan said that police had arrested only those involved in the attack on Pakistan Television and other government buildings.

Mr Khan and Mr Qadri have both declared that they will not end their protests until Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigns. 

However, the parliament unanimously rejected their “unconstitutional demand” after Mr Khan’s party, the third largest political bloc, quit the assembly.

• A powerful car bomb has exploded in a bazaar in the Pakistani south-west, killing at least three people and wounding 24 others.

Police spokesman Abdur Razzak Cheema said that the attack took place as a vehicle carrying security forces was passing through the market in the Baluchistan provincial capital Quetta.

Baluchistan is Pakistan’s largest province and has been the scene of a low-scale insurgency for several years.

Separatists are pressing the federal government to share gas and oil revenues more equitably.