KOHAT, March 24: The local lawyers took out a procession here on Saturday against the in-charge of a police station for allegedly raiding the house of one of their colleagues and keeping him in unlawful confinement.

They demanded of the government to transfer Kohat DIG, district police officer and SSP investigation with immediate effect and probe the incident.

The protesting lawyers threatened to expand their protest to the entire province if in-charge of Saddar police station, Arman Gul, was not transferred from the district within 24 hours.

They said that the detained lawyer, Aftab Alam, was sitting in canteen when police called him to his house and then arrested him.The protesters were addressed by Kohat Bar Association president Imtiaz Alam, Samiullah and Aamad Khan.

The protesting lawyers chanted slogans against the police high-ups for patronising black sheep in the department.

They advised the parliamentarians against making a compromise between the lawyers and police. “If anybody tries for a patch up between the lawyers and police, we will boycott his election,” they threatened.

They said that ship of all those lawyers, who would stay away from the protest, would be cancelled by the bar.

However, police officials told Dawn that Aftab Alam had fired at and injured a person so he was nominated in an FIR. They claimed that under Article 54, police could arrest any person without showing arrest warrant. “But the lawyers don’t want to understand this and that is why they are demanding release of their colleague,” they said. They said that law would take its due course under all circumstances and made it clear that nobody was above the law.

The accused advocate was in the custody of police investigation department and was being interrogated by a team while the victim was getting treatment in a hospital in the protection of police, they added.