QUETTA, Oct 15: Traders pulled down shutters of their shops in the city in response to the Jamiat Ulema Islam’s call for a countrywide strike to express resentment over the arrival of the US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Pakistan and to protest against government’s support to US attack on Afghanistan.

Public transport, however, operated on the roads and government offices reported normal attendance of employees. Banks reported meagre business.

A public meeting in the afternoon was the main event of the day-long protest, where more than a dozen leaders of various religious and political parties delivered highly provocative speeches but offered no future course of action in context of their campaign, which has claimed seven lives so far.

“If the government does not take any lesson from today’s countrywide protest strike, our future course would be even more harsh,” JUI Secretary-General Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri threatened.

He said that his party was consulting all parties of the Defence Council for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He announced that top leaders of JUI were in session in Quetta to chalk out the future course.

The JUI leader accused the law enforcement agencies of gunning down 13 supporters of his party since Oct 7, when the USA started bombing raids on Afghanistan which sparked off protest rallies and strikes in various parts of the country.

He disclosed that the government had lodged an FIR against his party’s leader Maulana Naseeb Gul on death of a militia soldier on Sunday while he was returning from Jacobabad on the day.

“Maulana Naseeb Gul had left the venue hours before the actual shootout,” he said.