22 April 2005	Friday	12 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426

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LAHORE, April 21: Justice Rustam Ali Malik of the Lahore High Court on Thursday held as unmaintainable a writ petition, seeking the court to direct the Punjab government to release all the PPP activists. Moved by MNA Naheed Khan, the political secretary to PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto, and Syed Qaim Ali Shah, a former chief minister of Sindh, the writ petition was taken up as an objection petition after the high court registrar office recorded on it that it was not maintainable for not mentioning the names and the number of the people arrested and detained.

The court upheld the office objection after additional advocate-general Muhammad Akbar Tarar submitted that any legal relief was available to the people, whose names were not mentioned. He submitted that the petitioners had not even mentioned the number of those detained and the court was in no position to issue a blanket order for their release.

The petition was moved by senior advocate Abdul Basit, who submitted that thousands of the PPP leaders and workers were arrested in a crackdown to prevent them to receive their leader Asif Ali Zardari at Lahore airport on April 16.