RAWALPINDI, Oct 13: The caravan of lawyers taking part in the anti-Legal Framework Order (LFO) long march was received here by members of the District Bar Association (DBA) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz on Monday.

ARD President Javed Hashmi and the District Bar Association President Chaudhry Ilyas welcomed the more than ten dozens senior lawyers representing the bars of the four provinces and Azad Kashmir.

The lawyers pledged to hold their convention at the Supreme Court Bar office located on the premises of the apex court on Tuesday. They said they would proceed towards Islamabad from the district courts at 9:30am.

The vehicles in the caravan were bearing national flags and banners inscribed with anti-LFO and anti-Musharraf slogans. Prior to entering the bar room at the katchery, the lawyers chanted “Go Musharraf go” , “no LFO no and LFO is a black law” slogans.

The lawyers who delivered anti-LFO speeches at the bar room included President of the Supreme Court Bar Council Hamid Khan, President Lahore Bar Hafiz Abdur Rehman Ansari, Vice-chairman Pakistan Bar Council Qazi Anwar Khattak, President Sindh High Court Bar Association Malik Muneer, Secretary SC Bar Shahzad Anwar Hameed, President Karachi Bar Mohammad Ali Abbasi, President Pakistan Bar Council Abdul Hameed Pirzada, and President Balochistan High Court Bar Mohsin Khan.

President DBA Mohammad Ilyas, Secretary-general HC Bar Rawalpindi bench, Shah Khawar, former president of the bar, Chaudhry Ikram and PML-N’s Syed Zafar Ali Shah and others also spoke.

The speakers condemned the president-in-uniform and asked the army to return to barracks and leave the state’s affairs to be run by politicians and institutions. Gen Musharraf, they said, was a grade 20 officer and had no right to amend the 1973 Constitution.

They also protested against the three-year extension given to the superior courts judges, the president’s discretionary power to dissolve the National Assembly under article 58 (2)(b) besides establishment of a National Security Council.