OKARA: Hundreds of PPP workers and the traders community took out a procession against the law and order situation in the city.

The demonstrators, led by PPP District President Ashraf Khan Sohna and Central Anjuman-i-Tajiran President Chaudhry Saleem Sadiq, blocked Deepalpur Chowk on GT Road for some time.

Later, the demonstrators surrounded the B Division City Police Station and condemned the alleged inefficiency of the police for not arresting the killers of a property dealer, Sarfraz, who was shot dead on Dec 13.

STRIKE: A shutter-down strike was observed across the district, including all three bars, while academic institutions also remained closed against the Peshawar school attack.

All commercial and shopping areas, including fruit and vegetable and grain markets, remained closed in urban areas of Okara, Deepalpur and Renala Khurd. Students of various organisations took out a joint procession from the Govt Post Graduate College, which was joined by several other students. They shouted slogans and demanded the government take decisive steps for complete eradication of terrorists and their sympathisers from the country.

The district bar association (DBA) and tehsil bars of Deepalpur and Renala Khurd also observed a strike and no lawyer appeared in courts.

Thousands of people, including college and school students, offered funeral prayers in absentia in the lawn of the DCO Office, attended by District and Sessions Judge Rana Abdul Hafeez, District Coordination Officer Kaiser Saleem, District Police Officer Babar Bakht Qureshi, DBA President Rai Shafi Kharal, Secretary Syed Zahid Bokhari, Central Anjuman Tajiraan President Chaudhry Saleem Sadiq, social workers and Jamaat-i-Islami district chief Dr Liaquat Ali Kausar among others.

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2014