THOUSANDS of anti-government protesters were descending on Pakistan’s parliament today.

Around 700 troops were taking position in Islamabad’s “Red Zone,” which also houses the prime minister and president’s ceremonial homes and a number of diplomatic posts. It is the first time soldiers have been deployed in the capital under a civilian administration.

Officials said tens of thousands of security forces were posted across the city.

Around 30,000 protesters backing opposition politician Imran Khan and anti-government cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri had threatened to occupy parliament if Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif didn’t step down by yesterday afternoon over fraud allegations.

Yesterday, Mr Khan said they would set up a “Tahrir Square” in the Red Zone — referring to the Egyptian protest camp that brought down long-term ruler Hosni Mubarak.

“Let us promise that we will remain peaceful,” said Mr Qadri. “No one will trespass into any building,” Mr Khan told his supporters.

The marchers — including many women and children — were armed with wire cutters and backed by cranes to deal with security forces’ makeshift barricades of barbed wire and storage containers.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan pleaded for calm ahead of the march, saying: “Violence can’t be allowed to happen. What is this all we are showing to the world?”

But the authorities’ insistence that protesters would not be allowed inside the Red Zone coupled with the protest leaders’ pledge to stay until the PM goes made clashes look likely.

Mr Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaf party has been complaining that the Pakistan Muslim League-N rigged last year’s elections, the first peaceful transfer of power in Pakistan’s history.

Mr Sharif has agreed to set up a judicial commission to probe the allegation but refused to step down.

The PM, himself previously overthrown in the 1999 coup that brought former army chief Pervez Musharraf to power, has been meeting with top advisers ahead of the rally.

The government also has invoked a rarely used article in the constitution allowing the military to introduce martial law if needed.