October 23, 2007	Tuesday	Shawwal 10, 1428

LAHORE, Oct 22: The Lahore High Court Bar Association has announced staging a rally on Tuesday (today) in protest against twin blasts aimed at “attempting to kill” PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto and loss of scores of lives.

“The bar will also observe Tuesday as a black day and boycott court proceedings to register its protest against the gory attempt on Mohtarma’s life,” president Ahsan Bhoon announced while addressing the general house of the LHCBA. Although the call to protest the blasts had been made to lawyers across the country, the Lahore Bar Association’s response is expected to be lukewarm.

“We had already announced on Saturday that we would mark Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as black days against the Karachi carnage,” said Lahore Bar Association President Syed Muhammad Shah while talking to Dawn.

Asked if the LBA would take out a rally to protest the Karachi killings, he said the bar’s general house would have to decide on either boycotting or taking out a rally.

Earlier, Advocate Abid Saqi laid before the Lahore High Court Bar Association general house a resolution to condemn the incident. The resolution said: “We condemn the ruthless attack on the caravan of Benazir Bhutto who had returned to Pakistan after bringing to an end her eight years of exile for the restoration of democracy in the country. A large number of people injured in the blasts are still lying in different hospital of Karachi due to inhuman attack.”

The incident, it said, clearly indicated that some elements in the government wanted to eliminate the popular leadership of the country. The deadly blasts were a condemnable attempt to thwart national and political movement for the restoration of democracy, the resolution added.

The anti-democratic forces wanted to precipitate the country into a civil war to keep at length democratic political forces in order to prolong their illegal rule, the resolution said, adding that the occurrence of blasts had become a threatening phenomenon, especially in the backdrop of Benazir’s letter to the government that warned it of a plot to kill her.

The resolution demanded Gen Pervez Musharraf dissociate himself from the COAS’ slot and the president’s office being kept by him by force.

It asked for release of all political prisoners and those who had been in the custody of agencies for several years now. A commission, comprising retired judges of the Supreme Court, be formed and assigned probe into the twin blasts, it demanded. —Reporter