June 01, 2007	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 15, 1428

GUJRANWALA, May 31: The public transport owners on Thursday expressed anguish over non-payment of dues for rendering service for the presidential public address in Islamabad on May 12 and demanded that the district administration should fulfill its commitment by paying the remunerations.

They said the district administration and the Regional Transport Authority secretary had hired nearly 800 vehicles for transporting the ruling PML activists, led by ministers and parliamentarians, to the capital city. On the PML leaders’ demand, they said, the RTA secretary had impounded another 400 vehicles but all those hired had not been paid remunerations so far.

Saying that the PML leaders had deposited their share for the payment of fares, the transporters demanded that the government should release funds without further delay.

Police blamed: The Justice Criminal Coordination Committee has expressed dissatisfaction over the police performance.

At a meeting held here on Thursday, District and Sessions Judge Mazhar Husain Minhas said the police were not taking due interest in arresting the accused on court orders and in producing them in courts.

Such an attitude amounted to mockery of the judiciary and was a major factor behind delay in disposal of cases, he said, urging the police officers to help implement the court orders. He also asked them to improve the standard of investigation so as to provide relief to the people.

The D&SJ directed the jail authorities to detain notorious proclaimed offenders and lock-up prisoners in separate barracks to avoid any untoward incident.

DIG (Operations) Khadim Husain Bhatti, SP (Investigation) Rana Shahid Mahmood, district prosecution officer Fayyaz Ahmad Warraich, jail superintendent Mian Shaukat Ali and other senior officers were also present. They assured the judge of all-out cooperation with the judiciary for early disposal of cases.

TEACHERS: Schoolteachers announced that they would protest outside the Governor’s House in Lahore on Friday (today) as part of their campaign, rejecting the government’s threat of banning their unions or suspending them.

At a meeting held here on Thursday, the participants said the prime minister and the Punjab chief minister had promised to give the teaching allowance to the teachers but all these turned out to be hollow slogans.

They said the government had failed to conduct the annual examination of Class-V and middle standard due to complete boycott of teachers at examination centres in Punjab. Now Punjab Education Minister Imran Masood said the students would be promoted to next classes if the teachers continued their protests.