February 01, 2008	Friday	Muharram 22, 1429

SIALKOT, Jan 31: Bushra Aitzaz, the wife of incarcerated Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan, said on Thursday the Feb 18 election would be an eyewash in the absence of the independent judiciary in the country.

Addressing a largely-attended meeting of lawyers at the Sialkot District Bar Association, she alleged that the government had planned “a massive rigging” for the election to bring the PML-Q back into power.

Holding the general election in the current political scenario would be a waste of money and time, she said while regretting that the country’s supreme judiciary had been lying paralysed for the last 90 days. She vowed to continue lawyers’ nationwide movement and pledged to make all-out efforts for the restoration of deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

Ruling out negotiations with the powers-that-be, Bushra, who stepped out after Aitzaz’s house-arrest to raise voice against the judiciary’s subjugation, hoped that the lawyers’ struggle would prove fruitful soon in the shape of “ouster of all the dictators.”

Bushra, who also inaugurated the hunger strike camp set up by the Sialkot lawyers in the DBA lawns, concluded her message by saying that the lawyers were united on all issues.