GUJRAT, June 24: Civil Lines police on Wednesday night lodged a case against three lawyers, including the DBA president and acting secretary-general, on the charge of embezzling bar funds in the name of strike against DPO Raja Munawar Husain.

The complainant of the FIR lodged under section 420 and 409 of the PPC is Advocate Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmad. The nominated accused are bar president Tariq Javed, acting secretary-general Asghar Shaheen and Advocate Gulraiz Warriach.

The DBA had passed a requisition eight months ago against DPO Raja Munawar for allegedly misbehaving with senior lawyer Gulraiz Warriach. Earlier, Gujrat Saddar police had registered a case against bar secretary-general Raja Rasheed Jaral for leading a caravan to receive PML-N leader Mian Shahbaz Sharif on May 11.

He was later released from the local jail when an ATC of Gujranwala granted himbail. Advocate Jaral was, however, again booked by the Civil Lines police when one of his colleagues, Shafqatullah Butt, submitted a written application alleging that had a fake law degree. Since then advocate Asghar Shaheen has been holding the office.

The complainant alleged that the bar president, secretary-general and Mr Warriach had allegedly appropriated Rs700,000 in the name of preparation of banners and placards for strike against the DPO.

He alleged that the bar president, along with some other lawyers, came to his chamber the other day and sought financial help for strike. He said they claimed that they had spent Rs700,000 for the strike and demanded more funds to continue it.

Sources quoted the complainant as saying in the FIR that the Punjab Bar Council wrote a letter to the bar president four days ago, requesting him to call off the strike.

They further quoted him as saying he (the president) did not disclose to the members about the issuance of the letter. He asked the police to take action against the lawyers.

Acting bar president Chaudhry Usman Warriach told newsmen that the government and the DPO wanted to victimize them. But he said lawyers would not bow down to these steps and continue their strike against the DPO. He said the bar would take a disciplinary action against those lawyers, who had called off their strike and started attending courts.

He said a meeting of the general house had been convened for June 28 to discuss their future course of action. A partial strike was observed here on Thursday in which more than 40 lawyers were present.