PESHAWAR, Feb 24: The NWFP Bar Council on Friday urged the federal and provincial governments to reconstruct court buildings damaged by last year’s devastating earthquake in different districts, including the circuit bench of the high court in Abbotabad.

In a press release issued here on Friday, Kifayat Ali Khan, council’s vice-chairman, and member Adam Khan Jadoon, threatened to launch a protest campaign if the repair work was not started on a priority basis.

They said that the quake had badly damaged court buildings in Abbotabad, Mansehra, Balakot, Batagram and Allai and subsequently judges had been conducting proceedings either in tents or in rented buildings.

They said that the lawyers’ community of the Hazara division had to sit in tents or in the open while waiting for their turn in these temporary courts. They regretted that none of their elected representatives had visited these devastated courts and had not paid any attention towards its reconstruction.

In Abbotabad, they said, the judges of the circuit bench had been performing their functions in their residences.

They criticized what they termed government complacency over the lack of strategy after the collapse of the circuit bench which, they said, had been set up to accomodate the demands of the people and lawyers of the Hazara division.