LAHORE, July 12: Lawyers, civil society organisations and political parties continued their weekly exercise of taking out a rally on The Mall to protest presidential reference against the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

This Thursday’s rally was also aimed at lodging protest against the killing of ‘innocent people’ in the Lal Masjid operation

Lawyers of superior as well as lower judiciary boycotted court proceedings before joining civil society activists at the GPO Chowk at 11am.

Holding placards and banners inscribed with their demands, the demonstrators left for Charing Cross.

Workers of the PPP, the PML-N, Jamaat-i-Islami, Tehrik-i-Insaaf, Labour Party, Khaksar Tehrik, Awami Jamhoori Tehrik (an alliance of some left-wing groupings) were carrying their respective party flags too.

At the Charing Cross, leaders of the Lahore High Court Bar Association and Lahore Bar Association addressed the protesters. Unlike past Thursdays, no political figure spoke to the rally’s participants who, before dispersing, offered funeral prayers in absentia for those killed in the Lal Masjid operation.

Lawyers, political activists and general public have been using novel ways of protest during this weekly rally since March 9.

Some children brought by the Awami Jamhoori Tehrik were wearing loaves in their necks and were raising slogans against price-hike.

PML-N workers holding portraits of Nawaz Sharif and Shabaz Sharif were leading the rally. Some people showered rose-petals on them when they reached outside the Panorama Shopping Centre.