MULTAN, Jan 14: Lawyers observed a complete strike here on Wednesday against separation of Pakpattan district from the Multan bench of the Lahore High Court.

The call was given by the Lahore High Court Bar Association, Multan bench, to protest against the attachment of Pakpattan with the principal seat, transfer of cases of monetary disputes exceeding Rs5 million and banking corporate laws to the principal seat, disaffiliation of Sahiwal and Lodhran districts from the Multan Anti-Corruption Establishment and their inclusion in the Lahore and Bahawalpur circles, respectively.

The lawyers showed complete solidarity as none of them appeared before any court. They held a protest meeting with LHCBA, Multan bench, president Syed Ahmad Raza Bokhari in the chair.

Umar Kamal Khan, Pervez Aftab, Maulvi Sultan Alam Ansari, Sheikh Ghiasul Haq, Khadim Nadeem Malik, Abdul Aziz Niazi, Sheikh Naeem Goreja, Ihsanul Haq Bhalli, Chaudhry Sadiq Safdar, Kunwar Younas, Rao Jamshed Ali Khan and Haider Jamal Maitla addressed the protesters.

The speakers lamented that the people at the helm of affairs in Lahore had always treated Multan step-motherly. They claimed that the resources of Multan had always been used for the development of other areas while the 'city of saints' was deliberately denied its share in the development.

They maintained that some 'narrow-minded' people had never approved the creation of Multan bench and their ill intentions sometimes manifested in writ petitions against the very existence of the bench and sometimes in the curtailment of its powers and jurisdiction.

They vowed that they would not allow further exploitation of the people of south Punjab. "In the given circumstances, we are compelled to demand a separate administrative provincial unit of south Punjab so that its resources should be spent on the well being of its people," they asserted.

They claimed that the performance of both the bar and the bench of Multan was better than the rest of the Punjab and demanded that it should be given the powers equal to the principal seat.

They also demanded withdrawal of all the 'controversial' decisions, including detachment of Pakpattan from the Multan bench. The meeting decided to hold a joint gathering of all the bar associations under the jurisdiction of the Multan bench on Jan 24 here to chalk out future course of action. Before the proposed gathering, the Multan DBA would organize a convention on Jan 17 to mobilize the community.