March 22, 2007	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 2, 1428

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LAHORE, March 21: After failing to reign in members of legal fraternity with an iron hand initially, the Punjab government reflected a sudden change of heart on Wednesday when the chief minister asked all district nazims to leniently deal with protesting lawyers and allow them to hold peaceful demonstrations and rallies.

Presiding over a meeting of nazims here, Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi reportedly asked them to contact lawyers’ bodies in their respective districts and immediately prepare a code of ethics for peaceful holding of demonstrations and processions.

He, however, directed the nazims to be watchful of miscreants and proceed according to the law against those found indulging in violent protests.

Official sources said the government had adopted the policy of allowing peaceful demonstrations by lawyers to control them through peaceful means as the use of force had only earned it a bad name within and outside the country.

The nazims had also been involved in the process after the realisation that the maintenance of law and order was now the responsibility of elected district heads and not of the provincial government under the law.

They said the provincial authorities were happy over the fact that due to the leniency shown by the government, Wednesday’s protests of lawyers in the province, especially in Lahore, remained peaceful.

Meanwhile, according to an official handout, the chief minister also asked the nazims to adopt solid measures for implementing the government’s social, administrative, and economic reforms. He said the provincial and the district governments were jointly advancing the programme of social development in Punjab.

He directed the nazims to improve the working of all the devolved departments. He said the basic reforms would be introduced during the next three years to launch a better system of sewerage and sanitation, provide proper infrastructure and improve the administrative system of district governments.