March 25, 2007	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 5, 1428

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FAISALABAD, Mar 24: Police have been given a task to make concerted efforts to keep students, traders, transporters and labour unions away from the protest campaign launched by lawyers in the country, it was learnt on Saturday.

The government apprehends that political parties will try to engage students and traders in the protest drive against the presidential action against chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

To thwart the strategy of political parties, sources said that police officers would meet incumbents of educational institutions and market leaders, sources said.

They said the provincial home department, on the direction of the federal government, had forwarded instructions to regional and district police officers in this regard.

Police officers were asked to implement the government instructions in letter and spirit. However, they were asked to refrain from using force against lawyers and media people and coordinate with the latter, they said.

A police officer confirmed that they had been asked to do their utmost to keep students and traders away from protests as government apprehended that their participation could aggravate the situation.

“If these segments of society join hands with lawyers and political parties, it could burn the government fingers,” he said.

Whereabouts of such students and trade leaders have also been collected who could lend their hands to magnify the crisis. He said that officers concerned were asked to keep a wary eye on their movement.

Keeping in view the instructions, he said meetings were being arranged silently with them, especially traders, to make them like-minded.

District bar association president Tanvir Randhawa said the government was busy ploughing the sand, but it would not yield any results for lawyers would continue their protest till the supremacy of the judiciary.

He said the present crisis had jolted every citizen who joined lawyers to express their solidarity with the CJP and register their protest for the rule of law.

The DBA chief vehemently stated that lawyers would neither seek support from any political party nor allow them to make their protest a political game. “We have been struggling for the restoration of democracy and nothing else”.

Requesting anonymity, a professor of the Government College University said the police had instructed the administration not to allow assembly of students.

He said the police had assured the administration to extend help against those students who would try to take out a rally or stage any protest.