GUJRANWALA, Dec 29: Tense calm continued to prevail in the city and its suburbs even the third day on Saturday after the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Activists of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the district bar association held protest meetings and offered funeral prayers.

The DBA meeting, presided over by bar president Ilyas Rehan, condoled with the family members of Benazir Bhutto over her tragic death.

Speaking on the occasion, bar secretary-general Amir Munir Bagari, former bar presidents Zulfikar Ahmad Oathi and Pervaiz Ahmad Oathi and other lawyers alleged that President Pervez Musharraf was responsible for the murder of the PPP chairperson.

They said the military establishment could not tolerate any popular political leader and it needed puppet prime ministers like Shaukat Aziz, Zaferullah Jamali and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

The lawyers later offered funeral prayers in the compound of district courts.

PPP workers also offered funeral prayers in Wazirabad, Ghakkhar Town, Aimanabad and in Ladhewala Warraich, the PPP divisional president and former MNA Imtiaz Safder Warraich’s native village. A large number of PPP workers and civil society members participated in it.

Slogans against the government and the PML-Q leaders echoed after the funeral prayers. They termed the assassination of their leader a target killing.

A large number of PPP activists took out a protest procession in Khiali Shahpur and got closed the shops forcibly. The police reached there and dispersed protesters after resorting to a light baton charge.

The PML-Q aspirants went into hiding after closing their election offices while the motorway police kept their vehicles off the GT Road to avoid any untoward incident.

Meanwhile, the Sabzi Mandi police registered cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act against 2,700 people, including local PPP leaders Imtiaz Safder Warraich, Abdullah Virk, Zeeshan Ilyas and bar president Ilyas Rehan. Cases were registered for taking out a procession on the GT Road and damaging public and private property. Police also arrested some 200 of them in the crackdown.

DIG Khadim Hussain Bhatti deployed heavy police contingents at important places instead of Rangers.