SARGODHA: Lawyers continued their strike against what they called the biased attitude of police, locking the courtrooms not allowing any litigant to enter the district courts’ premises.

They marched up to district police officer’s office and staged a sit-in at the DPO Chowk and chanted anti-police slogans.

Some traders of Session Road had allegedly thrashed three lawyers on Thursday afternoon and were arrested by Cantt police but were later released after a protest demo.

The protesting lawyers pledged to continue strike till the police booked the traders involved in the attack under Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA).

On the other hand, local Anjuman-i-Tajran in a meeting headed by Khwaja Hanif said in fact lawyers had attacked the traders and then got them arrested.

The Anjuman, in a statement, said the lawyers forced the police to register a fake case against the traders.

The trader also decided to stage a sit-in at Kutchery Bazaar Chowk on Sunday (today) at 11am and announced a shutter-down strike for Monday.

DPO Sajjad Manj has said police would not succumb to any pressure, asking his subordinates to work honestly without any fear.

CONCERN: Parents of students have expressed concern over lack of security around schools holding the district and tehsil municipal administration responsible for it as the officials “failed to remove encroachments” around the public and privates institutions.

The administration has already identified encroachments around Government Ambala Muslim High School, Government High School No.1, Pilot Girls School, Government High School No.2 and Iqbal High School.

Some of the parents said there were also encroachments on the valuable land of some other government-run and private schools but no action had been taken to remove them, allegedly because of political pressure.

On the other hand, District Coordination Officer (DCO) Saqib Manan, presiding over a meeting, said 54 schools of the city were “sensitive” and all measures were being taken to ensure security at these institutions.

He said 13 of the schools were declared “highly sensitive” in the first phase, while 41 others fell in the second category of “sensitive”. He said private schools would be issued two arms licences each for their security.

District Police Officer (DPO ) Sajjad Manj said the “quick response force” was being linked with educational institutions through SMS alert in collaboration with a cellular company.

He said principals or headmasters and a group of five staff members of each institution would be authorised to send a free of cost SMS alert to the quick response force that would immediately come into action in case of an terrorism threat.

He said all educational institutions falling in ‘A’ (sensitive) and ‘A-plus’ (highly sensitive) categories would be linked with police through this system.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2015

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