MULTAN, Dec 22: A local court on Wednesday granted pre-arrest bail to 12 more PPP leaders and workers in the cases registered against them for violation of section 144 CrPC.

The district police had registered cases against 2,200 people for violation of the section 144 on Sunday last when hundreds of PPP workers had gathered to accord welcome to former Multan mayor Malik Salahuddin Dogar. He was granted bail in the cases instituted against him by NAB and the Anti-Corruption Establishment.

The provincial government had clamped the section 144 to avoid assembly of five or more people on the eve of Dogar's reception. Prominent among the people charged for violation were Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Salahuddin Dogar, Amer Dogar, Liaquat Dogar, Dr Javed Saddiqi, Khwaja Rizwan Alam, Ahmad Hasan Deharr and Ahmad Mujtaba Gillani.

Police had arrested about two dozen of the PPP workers. Of them, half were granted bail on Tuesday while the rest were sent to the jail after rejection of their pleas by local courts. Several leaders had secured pre-arrest bails on Tuesday.

The leaders who secured pre-arrest bails from the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Chaudhry Muhammad Sadiq were Khalid Haneef Lodhi, Ahmad Hasan Deharr, Mujtaba Gillani, Khwaja Rizwan, Sharifullah, Nasir Qureshi, Rana Arshad, Hashim Baber, Saleem Shahzad, Mukhtar Awan, Kunwar Zahid and Rana Javed Iqbal.

Meanwhile, scores of PPP workers gathered at Kutchery Chowk to again violate section 144 CrPC as a mark of protest against manhandling of their comrades gathered to welcome Asif Ali Zardari. The protesters chanted slogans against the government and vowed to continue their struggle for the restoration of democracy.