April 08, 2007	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 19, 1428

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LAHORE, April 7: A one-man inquiry probing into the March 17 clashes between police and lawyers on Saturday concluded proceedings. Justice Syed Zahid Hussain of the Lahore High Court concluded the proceedings after testifying Lahore operations police chief SSP Aftab Cheema. The court also reviewed TV footage, newspapers’ records, and images of close-circuit cameras pertaining to the incident.

A court official said the judge would be sending its recommendations to Supreme Court by Monday or Tuesday.

The operations police chief told the inquiry that Punjab government had imposed a ban on holding rallies, and on the day of the incident it was duty of the police to restrain lawyers from getting onto roads. He added Punjab home secretary on March 15 had issued instructions regarding the ban on rallies.

Mr Cheema said that he had also got instructions from Lahore police chief Malik Muhammad Iqbal, although he could not coordinate with him, later. He admitted that police in civvies had been deployed inside the high court building. He claimed all the action his force took that day was just to maintain law and order, adding that police did not cause injury to anybody. About hundreds of riot police, Mr Cheema said they had been deployed on roads to guard life and property.

Lawyers also cross-examined the operations police chief. Citing two examples of the

violations of the ban on assembly and rallies on part of the government, including holding of a pro-government lawyers’ convention and a public rally at Manga Mandi, they asked him to explain the imposition of the ban. He replied that the convention at Al-Hamra on The Mall was no violation of the law because the lawyers did not rally on the road, and that the government had relaxed the ban for the Manga Mandi public rally, which was addressed by Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi.

The lawyers confronted Mr Cheema, showing him a news item published in an Urdu daily which quoted him as saying that the protesting lawyers were dealt first strictly and later on softly just due to the government policy. Admitting that he did not contradict the news, he claimed that he never went through it.

Asked as to who had ordered him to let the lawyers come on The Mall after the clashes on March 17, Mr Cheema said Lahore police chief had ordered him to withdraw the force from the high court’s gates at 1:30pm. Later, he said the lawyers got onto the road and staged a sit-in, besides breaking a gate of the court building.

Of the police officials, who had entered the court building and an armoured vehicle, the operations police chief said departmental action was being taken against such officials, and the driver of the vehicle had already been suspended from service.

The inquiry had on a previous hearing appointed a one-man commission to examine the ransacked offices of the lawyers, which also submitted its report.

Journalists, lawyers and their bars’ representatives and police officials have been testified in the inquiry.

STRIKE: Lawyers on Saturday continued one-hour token strike against the suspension of the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

They boycotted all court proceedings from 10.30am to 11.30am in the city and elsewhere in Punjab.