November 07, 2007	Wednesday	Shawwal 25, 1428

LAHORE, Nov 6: Anti-Terrorism Court Judge Shabbir Husain Chatha on Tuesday sent over 350 lawyers on judicial remand till Nov 10 and ordered release of four others, including three women, on bail.

Lahore High Court Bar Association Vice-President Firdous Butt, Finance Secretary Rubi Awan, Abida Chaudhry and an aged lawyer, Muhammad Suleman, were ordered to be released subject to furnishing surety bonds worth Rs25,000 each.

“After detention in the police station and then in a van, the police did not produce us before the anti-terrorism court. All lawyers, including me, have been sent to Kot Lakhpat Jail,” a lawyer said in a text message sent to this scribe from the police van.

Police had virtually cordoned off the court premises, said Aftab Bajwaj, the lawyer, who moved the bail applications along with Khwaja Haris and others.

The judge told the counsel that the power of attorney did not carry the detained lawyers’ signatures without which the bail applications could not be entertained. The counsel said as soon as the lawyers arrived from the jail, the power of attorneys would be signed.

Bajwa said the police present on the court premises had a hostile posture, and threatened the lawyers with dire consequences in case they tried to represent their colleagues arrested from the high court on Monday. He said several lawyers, who had come to express solidarity with their arrested colleagues, left the premises after feeling threatened.

He said the police restrained him from getting the signatures of the lawyers for submission of power of attorney. “Leave! You are not a state counsel,” he quoted a policeman as saying.

He said police also picked up one of his junior associates, Akhtar Dhillon, but later released him.

The lawyers, whose bails are being sought, were picked up from the premises of the Lahore High Court while protesting against the imposition of emergency.

They have been booked under 16-MPO, Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act and CrPC.

Amir Riaz, the brother of Chaudhry Tariq Javaid advocate, arrested on Monday during the protest at the high court, said his family feared for his life because of the brutal treatment being meted out by the police.