March 2, 2006	Thursday	Safar 1, 1427

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LAHORE, March 1: Advocate M.D. Tahir on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court in an application through which he sought the withdrawal of the order under which the apex court had allowed kite flying for two weeks.

Through the application, the lawyer requested the chief justice of Pakistan to take suo moto notice of the killing of at least five people, including three-year old Mahnoor, by slit of throat by metal wire and razor-sharp string.

The lawyer stated that a number of people were also injured after being hit by the string. Besides, the incidents of the suspension of electricity supply went up abnormally causing damage to domestic and commercial electric appliances.

Advocate Tahir stated that the kite flyers misused the permission and the police also failed to ensure strict implementation of the Supreme Court orders in letter and spirit. He was of the view that the people of Lahore, who had earlier welcomed the lifting of ban on kite flying, were now feeling highly embarrassed because of the killings of the innocent people.

JUDGES: Three more additional judges have been inducted to the Lahore High Court raising the number to 37.

According to a notification issued on Wednesday, federal government’s standing counsel Tariq Shamim, Pakistan Cricket Board legal adviser Syed Asghar Haider and assistant advocate-general from Rawalpindi Syed Sajjad Haider Shah, were elevated to the LHC as additional judges for a period of one year.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Husain Chaudhry will administer oath to the new judges at a ceremony in the LHC on Friday (tomorrow).

The LHC has a sanctioned strength of 50 judges and the new appointments will still leave as many as 13 vacancies. It was generally understood that at least eight more judges would be added to the high court. As a result of the new appointments, the number of additional judges has also gone up to seven.

PPP lawyers: Advocate Sardar Latif Khosa of the PPP on Wednesday supported the opposition’s call for a worldwide protest against the publication of blasphemous caricatures by certain European newspapers.

He and other leaders of the Khosa group, including Pakistan Bar Council members Ahsan Bhoon and Raja Shafqat Abbasi, Punjab Bar Council member Chaudhry Ishaq, LHCBA former secretaries Azam Nazir Tarar and Abid Saqi and LHCBA finance secretary Rabiyya Bajwa said in a news release on Wednesday that the protest was necessary because it was the most fundamental question of the faith of the Muslim across the world.

Another reason for the protest, they said, was because the government’s reaction against the sacrilegious caricatures was lukewarm and did not reflect the sentiments of the people.

They, however, said the protest should be peaceful to impress upon the nations around the world that Pakistanis were a peace-loving nation.