Hundreds more lawyers were arrested across Pakistan on Tuesday as the ousted chief justice at the centre of the country’s deepening political crisis urged the legal community to take the struggle for democracy to every corner of the south Asian state.

“It is the duty of every citizen and especially lawyers, to struggle for the supremacy of law, independence of the judiciary and real democracy,” Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary, told lawyers by mobile phone, according to Shaukat Rauf, a lawyer. The former chief justice is under house arrest.