BAHAWALPUR, Nov 8: The borstal was got vacated to accommodate the arrested lawyers who were shifted here from Lahore on Thursday.

It is learnt that 40 lawyers from Lahore, who were carted off here on Thursday, have been lodged in the borstal jail while more are expected from other cities.

The barracks have been kept ready by shifting its inmates to the new central jail.

Officials declined to comment on the subject, but made a clean breast of arrival of the arrested lawyers/rights activists.

Dawn learnt that in all 121 lawyers and members of civil society arrested in Lahore were so far shifted to local jails. Lahore Bar President Muhammad Ramzan was among the 45 lawyers lodged in a local jail, while 36 right activists were detained in new central jail and 40 lawyers in borstal jail.

On receipt of information, delegations of local lawyers, led by High Court Bar Association president Malik Saeed Ijaz and district bar association president Yahyah Khan, reached the jails to meet the detained lawyers and members of civil society.

After refusal by the jail authorities, they approached the court on whose permission they met their detained fellows, expressed solidarity with them and provided blankets and other essentials of daily use to them.

Bar president Yahyah Khan later told Dawn that the jailed lawyers were in high spirit and they vowed to continue their struggle against the imposition of emergency in the country.