July 29, 2003	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

LAHORE, July 28: Judicial work in the Lahore High Court and subordinate courts in Punjab remained almost suspended following a half-day strike call given by lawyers to protest against the Sialkot killings.

Hearing of urgent cases was held till 10:30 am.

The Lahore High Court Bar Association at a meeting held on Monday adopted a resolution demanding resignations of the interior minister and Punjab chief minister over the gory incident in which three judges were killed in the Sialkot prison.

The meeting also endorsed a countrywide one-day strike call for Wednesday.

The resolution also said that detailed negotiation could have avoided the incident and accused the police of mishandling the situation.

The meeting demanded that a fact-finding commission comprising the LHCBA and Lahore Bar Association members be constituted to find out the facts behind the killings.

LHCBA president Hafiz Abdul Rehman Ansari flayed the interior minister’s statement on the incident saying that he shouldn’t have come up with an excuse that such incidents were a “routine matter” in prisons.

It was demanded that the Gujranwala DIG should be arrested and tried under criminal charges.