KARACHI, May 21: The one-hour token boycott of court proceedings as part of the lawyer fraternity’s campaign for the independence of judiciary continued on Monday when lawyers at the Sindh High Court, the City Courts, and the Malir District Court stayed away from work from 10.30am to 11.30am. They also observed a token hunger strike.

At the City Courts, General Secretary of the Karachi Bar Association Naeem Qureshi announced that a procession would be taken out from the city courts on Thursday and the participants would march up to the Karachi Press Club.

General Secretary of the Sindh High Court Bar Association Munir-ur-Rehman and President of the Malir Bar Association Zahoor Hussain Mehar, however, said that their organisations would take a decision in this regard at their upcoming meetings.

The Pakistan Bar Council’s call for a full day boycott of the court proceedings on Thursday was endorsed by leaders of all bars.

Meanwhile, KBA President Iftikhar Javaid Qazi, speaking at the general body meeting of the bar, said the government was trying to suppress lawyers’ drive through the terrorists and armed forces. He warned that the cause of the campaign was not only supported by lawyers, but the entire nation.

He said the MQM ministers had misused their powers while handling the May 12 affairs and accused a federal minister, Babar Ghauri, of bringing all shipping containers to cordon off all major thoroughfares and roads. Citizens were made to endure hardship in moving from one place to other owing to the illegal and unjustifiable blockade across the city, he added.

He appealed to the British government to stop protecting those who were patronising terrorists in Karachi.

Political leaders, including former city nazim Niamatullah Khan advocate, MNA Asadullah Bhutto, Dr Mairajul Huda Siddiqui, Siddique Rathor and MPA Nasrullah Shaji, visited City Courts and expressed solidarity with the lawyer fraternity in their ongoing campaign. They also offered fateha for the depart souls of two lawyers who were killed during the May 12 violence.

Niamatullah Khan, Siddique Rathor and Basharat Mirza condemned the MQM for subjecting people to, what they called, state terrorism.