10 April 2004	Saturday	19 Safar 1425

QUETTA, April 9: A hunger strike unto death by teachers and a token protest by lawyers against education and prison departments, respectively, continued on Friday.

The spokesman for the Government Teachers Association (GTA) told Dawn that Minister for Industries Mir Abdul Ghafoor and the education secretary have held negotiations with the association on Thursday and Friday, but there was no progress.

The spokesman claimed that two other ministers, Syed Ehsan Shah and Mir Asim Kurd, have assured them that meeting between Chief Minister Jam Yousuf and the GTA's representatives was planned for Saturday to resolve the problem.

He said that the condition of the nine hunger strikers that entered the sixth day on Friday was deteriorated adding that five of them have been shifted to the jail ward at the civil hospital.

The spokesman stated that the GTA members would hold protest meetings in all the districts of the province on Monday despite imposition of section 144 and maintained that they would not call off the hunger strike unto death unless their demands were not accepted.

Meanwhile, the president of the Balochistan Bar Association, Javed Mohsin, said that three lawyers - Nasibullah Tareen, Rashid Golora, and Jamil Ramzan - observed the token hunger strike on Friday on the second day of the protest.

He said that the protest would continue until the jail staff that misbehaved with a lawyer did not apologize and the prison department issue notification granting facilities to the lawyers for meeting their clients in the jail.