March 14, 2007	Wednesday	Safar 24, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, March 13: For the Pakistanis with a conscience Tuesday was a sad day to see their chief judge being put in the dock.

But for our euphemistic law enforcement agencies it was a “catch the black” day. Policemen stood at all entry points of Islamabad on the look out of “men in black”.

Their assignment: prevent anyone in black suit or black coat from reaching the Supreme Court where Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was to appear before the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) to face the charge of misusing his authority. Police peered into private cars and public transport to spot and stop any man in black, not realising that not just lawyers wear black.

“Please let me proceed to Blue Area. I’m no lawyer. I am doing marketing for a multinational company,” pleaded black- suited Junaid Ahmed with an inspector of Punjab police who had detained him at Faizabad.

While the inspector was inspecting the employment card Mr Ahmed produced to prove his identity, a policeman looking into Mr Ahmed’s car shouted: “Sir, his employment card must be a fake. He IS a lawyer”.

And he had his “evidence” - a book on corporate law lying on the back seat of Mr Ahmed’s car.

Policemen searched madly for black coats that might have been hidden on the back seats of cars. Some “suspects” were made to open the boot of their cars to satisfy the inquisitive police.

Some policemen were in such a frenzy that they went colour blind. They stopped people wearing dark blue coats and cleared them after they were told, “Hey, this is not black!”

Their “catch the black” operation caused traffic jams and tested the patience of people who got delayed to their work.

“We know that many of them will be hiding their black jackets in their cars. That’s why we are so thorough in our search. We have strict instructions not to let Rawalpindi lawyers reach the Supreme Court (where a protest was planned),” a gun- toting constable posted at the Islamabad Highway said.

Employees of foreign missions too invited trouble by wearing black. They were allowed to proceed up to Serena Hotel but not to the Diplomatic Enclave a few hundred metres beyond. Their shouts and pleadings made no difference to the policemen on duty.

The ban on black coat seemed to extend to black leather jackets too as men so attired were seen being denied entry into Sector I-8 and beyond Faizabad.

Eight women wearing black jackets on white Shalwar Kameez were also interdicted. Police cleared only three of them after checking their service cards. The other five were sent back to Rawalpindi because they could not satisfy the police that they were not lawyers.