LAHORE, July 4: Judges of lower courts in the city continued their boycott of court proceedings for the third consecutive day on Wednesday against manhandling of their colleague by a couple of lawyers on Saturday.

Nadeem Hasan Waseer, civil judge of Cantonment courts, was tortured by advocates Taimur and Naeem along with four accomplices for refusing to grant bail to an accused in a Rs380 million fraud.

Courtrooms at Aiwan-i-Adl, City and Cantonment courts wore a deserted look as a majority of judges remained confined to their chambers throughout the day instead of taking up cases.

Lahore Bar Association president Muhammad Shah says the judges have ended their strike as bar membership of the two lawyers has been cancelled.

He claims that the judges had started taking up cases in their chambers after 11:30am.

A press note issued by the LHC on Tuesday had said that the judges were not on boycott rather insecurity in courtrooms was forcing them to remain confined to their chambers.

He said the judges were confining themselves to their chambers under instructions from the Lahore High Court regarding security problems.

Mr Shah said some people planted by the government were out to damage the lawyers’ movement for independent judiciary through incidents of misbehaving with judges.

It was the third incident during the last one month in which judges were manhandled. Earlier, judicial officers had been manhandled in Sargodha and Jhang.