October 8, 2005	Saturday	Ramazan 3, 1426

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LAHORE, Oct 7: The Pakistan Bar Council said that lawyers across the country staged protest on Friday against the recent increase in POL prices. The call to observe the protest day was issued by the Pakistan Bar Council and the PBC which claimed that the legal fraternity responded to it overwhelmingly. The Punjab Bar Council also made similar claims.

In Lahore, the Lahore High Court Bar Association adopted a resolution at a meeting condemning the POL price hike which, it said, added to economic miseries of the people.

The protesting lawyers also marched from the LHCBA office to the GPO chowk holding placards and raising slogans against the mounting cost of living.

PBC vice-chairperson Hafiz Abdur Rehman Ansari, LHCBA president Fakharunnisa, ex-president Ahmad Awais, Syed Zulfiqar Ali Bokhari, Pir Muhammad Masood and Rabbiya Bajwa told the meeting that the raise just before Ramazan was a cruel joke with the people who were finding it extremely difficult to keep the body and soul together.

Lawyers said that neither the government nor members of assemblies were moved by economic sufferings of the people. Legislators were interested only in their benefits and were not bothered about the people committing suicide for not managing to have even simple living.

BAILED OUT: Justice Muhammad Bilal Khan of the Lahore High Court on Friday allowed Nadeem Asghar Kaira, who claims to have been elected Kharian tehsil nazim on Thursday, to be released on bail.

Mr Kaira, a PPP politician who has been the tehsil nazim, was charged with appropriating the tehsil council funds but he submitted in the bail petition that he was being politically victimized by the ruling family of Gujrat.

He was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Establishment and has been behind the bars for about two months. He also contested election for the office of the nazim for the same tehsil.

Mr Kaira was arrested in July and the LHC allowed him protective bail to approach the Gujrat sessions court for redress of his grievances. The sessions court rejected his bail petition in August and he was put behind the bars.

As his appeal was rejected, he moved the LHC in a writ petition through which he contended that he was being politically victimized and that the audit of the tehsil funds did not show any embezzlement.

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