LAHORE, July 8: The Lahore Bar Association deferred a rally on Thursday hours before it was scheduled to be held to express solidarity with the Gujrat lawyers.

The decision was announced by LBA president Mirza Haneef Baig in the backdrop of certain Punjab government conciliatory moves, which began late last evening and continued till early hours of the day.

This is the first time since the conflict between the lawyers from Gujrat and DPO Raja Munawwar Husain started nine months ago that the government has made a 'serious move' to defuse tension.

The decision to recall the rally was taken at a time when the lawyers from the Lahore High Court, Gujrat and some other places had already reached the Aiwan-i-Adl from where they were to march on to The Mall.

Later, Lahore High Court Bar Association President Ahmad Awais, Gujrat bar's Chaudhry Tariq Javed Warraich and the LBA president told a news conference that the rally was deferred as a gesture of goodwill.

"The decision demonstrates that we want to resolve the issue and have no hand in stretching it so long. We have also shown that it is not our, but someone else's ego problem," Chaudhry Warraich told a questioner.

The bar leaders said the government wanted three to four days to find out an amicable solution to the problem. They hoped that their positive attitude would be matched by a similar response. "The ball is in the government's court and we expect that it will take all steps to defuse tension," he added.

Asked as to who had contacted the lawyers to cause the rally to be deferred, Mr Warraich said the contact was made at the "highest level" of the government. He said those brokering peace had assured the legal community that the government sincerely wanted to end the conflict.

The Gujrat bar chief, who has won instant national acclamation since the conflict began, said the bar had dropped two of the three demands. He said it no longer wanted the withdrawal of cases against a number of bar leaders nor was it interested in registration of criminal cases against those, who attacked the bar room in Gujrat on June 28.

However, he said, the demand of the transfer of the Gujrat DPO could not be compromised. He said the lawyers would not end their boycott in Gujrat till the demand was met.

Asked about the impact of various delegation of lawyers from Gujrat meeting first chief minister Pervaiz Elahi and then the law minister, the Gujrat bar president said the total number of such members of the bar was 19, of whom 15 were not practising law. One of them was a parliamentary secretary, the other an MPA, yet another a tehsil Naib Nazim and the rest were running their businesses.

He said all of them belonged to the PML. Four practising lawyers of the delegation, he said, were with other members of the community who abstained from courts for 44 days in running. It was after this prolonged agitation that the government pressured them to break away or lose party affiliation, Mr Warraich added.

SHAUKAT AZIZ: LHCBA president Ahmad Awais told a questioner that he was making contacts for convening a meeting of the Lawyers Joint Action Committee to launch a countrywide protest against the nomination of Shaukat Aziz as prime minister.