February 03, 2008	Sunday	Muharram 24, 1429

SUKKUR, Feb 2: President of the Supreme Court Bar Association Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan has said that his motives to visit Sindh were non-political and only wanted to express sympathy with the people of Sindh over the tragic death of Ms Benazir Bhutto.Addressing the members of Sukkur District Bar Association on telephone from Lahore airport on Saturday evening after being denied by the authorities to board a Sukkur-bound flight, he said the people of Punjab equally shared the grief of the Sindhi brothers over the untimely death of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Mr Aitzaz said that had the Sindh government banned his entry into the province, he should have been stopped at Sukkur instead of Lahore airport, and he also refused to challenge the decision of the Sindh government in this regard.

He said that his major aim of touring Sindh was to visit Garhi Khuda Bux to offer fateha at the grave of his leader Benazir Bhutto and offer condolence to her family.

He said that if the Scotland Yard could probe the murder of PPP chairperson, than why can’t a UN team, adding that the government was afraid of an investigation by the UN team.

Paying tribute to Ms Bhutto, he said she was leader of an international stature and a symbol of the federation.

The SCBA president said the struggle of lawyers would continue till achievement of goals. He further said that the government had detained chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry for the last three months along with his family. He said that no one was allowed to see them and even his children were not being allowed to go to school.

He pledged that despite hurdles by the government the lawyers’ struggle would continue and the programme of the ‘Judicial Bus’ in which 54 deposed judges would take part would be finalised within 15 days.