LAHORE, June 8: The Punjab Bar Council has issued a call to lawyers across the province to observe a complete strike on Thursday in protest against alleged sacrilege of the Holy Quran at the Guantanamo Bay. “We want to express our extreme distress and show to the world that lawyers in Pakistan are deeply shocked over the appalling incidents, which have also sent a wave of resentment among Muslims all over the world, PBC vice-chairperson Chaudhry Asghar Ali Gill told a news conference here on Wednesday.

Mr Gill demanded that the government should pressure the Washington administration to arrest and punish the security personnel responsible for defiling the holy book. The PBC had already sent copies of the resolution adopted at a bar council general house meeting on April 4, seeking of them to direct lawyers that they should observe a complete boycott of courts and hold protest rallies and meetings to adopt similar resolutions.

The Pakistan Bar Council has also made a similar call to the lawyers to observe boycott on Thursday.

Mr Gill said the council also decided to send copies of the resolution to bar councils and associations across the world, the United Nations and member states of the Saarc and C’Wealth to inform the world how deeply the lawyers of Pakistan were offended. — Correspondent