Defiant Pakistani judges held incommunicado

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani police on Monday held several judges incommunicado at their homes after they refused to swear allegiance when President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule, officials and a judge said.

"They are at their residences. They won't be allowed to come out," a senior administration official in the capital Islamabad told Reuters, regarding several judges of the Supreme Court.

Sabihuddin Ahmed, deposed chief justice the high court in the southern Sindh province told Reuters: "I was not allowed to go to the court. I am at my home."

He said he had heard some judges who managed to reach the high court were stopped by police from entering the court premises.

A large number of police have been deployed around the residences of defiant judges in Islamabad and officials said that their houses had been locked overnight to prevent them going to the court.

Musharraf issued a provisional constitutional order on Saturday night after imposing emergency rule, requiring the judges to take new oath or risk dismissal.

Most of the judges of the Supreme Court and four high courts refused to take oath under the provisional constitutional order.

The Supreme Court has been at odds with Musharraf since he tried to sack chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in March.