In a crackdown against exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim Laegue, the Pakistani police arrested hundreds of leaders in Lahore [Images] and Rawalpindi on Tuesday. A senior police officer said that the leaders were taken into custody as they may disrupt law and order by organising a reception for the deposed premier. Sharif is expected to return to Pakistan next week. 

The raids against PML-N were conducted across the country and hundreds of leaders were arrested, said a senior police official.

"Police have arrested the party's Punjab additional information secretary Ilyas Rabbani from his residence and 50 other activists," said PML-N's Punjab secretary general Raja Ashfaq Sarwar.

He added that the police were targeting those leaders who are planning to give the former prime minister and his brother Shahbaz Sharif a grand reception on their return to Pakistan.

"The PML-N's district presidents and secretaries have been made district coordinators and coordination committee secretaries, respectively, to arrange the receptions in their constituencies," he said.

Over two million party members are planning to travel to Islamabad on September 10 to show their support for Sharif, who is returning to Pakistan after a seven-year exile.

The Supreme Court recently granted Sharif the permission to return to Pakistan and contest in the forthcoming elections