KHAIRPUR: Lawyers boycotted courts’ proceedings on Thursday in response to a protest call given by Pakistan Bar Association against the apex court’s decision of empowering police to decide applications seeking registration of FIRs instead of approaching the courts first.

Khairpur District Bar Association (DBA) president Yasir Arafat Shar and DBA general secretary Mohammad Jumman Sahito, who led a procession of lawyers outside the sessions court after the boycott, said that it was sheer violation of the rights of common man that he had been deprived of the option of direct compliant.

They said that courts had always protected common man from police excesses and safeguarded his rights and served him justice when police failed to do so.

SUKKUR: Members of DBA also held a protest in Kandhkot against the decision.

The protesters’ leaders Abdul Ghani Bijarani, Mohsin Pathan, Munawwar Ali Bhutto, Syed Zahid Shah and others warned that lawyers would continue their protest till the restoration of the right to make direct complaint to courts laid down under Section 22 A and B of the CrPC.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2019