The workers of PML-N who were chanting anti-Musharraf slogans were punched, kicked, dragged and slapped before they were thrown into a van, which drove them to Civil Lines police station.
The heavily guarded and barricaded entrance to the high court leads to the parking space that now wears a deserted look.
Inside the premises, the small number of lawyers and heavy police presence not only reminds of what observers say the Monday’s monstrous operation but the intention of the keepers of the law.
The Aiwan-I-Adl too appeared deserted with heavy contingents of police keeping a strict vigil on lawyers and their activities.
“Offices of some lawyers on the Fane Road were raided, but no one was arrested,” said a lawyer at the Khosa chambers.
The boycott of courts, which now enters the third day since Monday, has debilitated the system of dispensation of justice, says a litigant squatting in front of courtroom. “When you destroy the institution from top to bottom, you cannot talk about justice or its dispensation,” advocate Syed Manzoor Ali Gillani told Dawn.
A lawyer seeking the status of his case inside courtroom of Justice Tariq Shamim laments the arrest of his senior and feels lucky to be free. “You just cannot have your case entertained even if you want so. What do you do when the lawyer representing the other side is absent?” he explained.
“The officials claim to have arrested 371 lawyers but the exact tally extends well beyond seven hundred,” claims advocate Aftab Bajwa. Bajwa along with a group of lawyers is making efforts to free his colleagues, “who do not have any political affiliations and were put away when police mistook them as protestors.”
Bajwa said they had met the Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court for discussing the release of such lawyers, and were allowed to file a petition for their early release. Another lawyer said: “Let those who chant slogans and have political agendas pay the price for their political affiliations. But those who were caught in the crossfire should not be allowed to languish behind bars.”
“We will not be able to arrest lawyers and put them behind bars if the PPP resigns from the assemblies and announces launching a movement,” said a policemen standing on The Mall in front of the high court. Similar views are being expressed in hot discussions going on among lawyers these days.
Lawyers feel that political parties, whose primary duty had been to fight for democracy, have fallen apart at seams when it came to supporting their movement. “Yes, the political parties have failed to dispense with their primary duty. They are at the moment without any defined, positive economic agenda,” says advocate Ahmad Saeed Kirmani.
“The mindset of the PPP leadership is changing,” says advocate Abid Saqi while commenting on the party’s inclinations. Saqi, affiliated with PPP, said he was asked to come to Islamabad for a protest but he declined because he had to make arrangements to free the arrested lawyers.
“The media should mediate between the administration and the bar to cool things down,” said a law officer looking visibly upset over the state of affairs. He added it was about time that better sense prevailed.
But, the police crackdown and the boycott of courts signal that the sanity may take a bit too long to prevail.
The PML-N workers arrested on Wednesday include Naushad Hameed, Bodi Pehlwan, Muhammad Azim, Aslam Bhola, Muhammad Pervaiz, Amjad Butt, Syed Dilshad Shah, Muhammad Sabir and Ghulam Masood.
The lawyers arrested from Aiwan-I-Adl are Safdar Mahmood Butt and Asim Virk.