LAHORE, June 5: Lawyers at a weekly get-together on Thursday vowed to make the June 10 long march a success to give a befitting response to “deliberate delay in the restoration of the judges by the government”.
Under the banner of the Lahore Bar Association, some 1,000 young lawyers from the Aiwan-i-Adl joined their peers from the Lahore High Court Bar Association in front of the GPO crossing. Among the protesters were workers of the Communist Mazdoor Kisan Party, who chanted slogans against President Pervez Musharraf.
Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf activists also marched along the protesters and raised slogans against the US interference in domestic affairs. Representatives of the Concerned Citizens of Pakistan, the Jamaat-i-Islami and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan also made an appearance.
In comparison with the past rallies, the number of the protesters grew in the backdrop of the lawyers’ efforts to create an atmosphere for the long march. Almost 2,000 protesters, holding placards, banners and posters inscribed with slogans against the PCO judges and in favour of the deposed judges, finally gathered in front of the Punjab Assembly Hall.
After reaching the Charing Cross, the protesters formed several groups and chanted slogans like ‘chief terey janisar, baishumar, baishumar’ and ‘go Musharraf go’. The PML-N workers held aloft party flags and chanted ‘Adlia ki bahali tak jang rehey gee, jang rahey gee’.
Speaking to the protesters, LBA President Manzoor Qadir said Gen Musharraf (retired) was clinging on to power because he knew that he would be tried for his crimes under Article 6 of the Constitution. The lawyers, he added, would accept neither any reduction in the tenure of the chief justice nor the constitutional package.
Earlier, PML-N Secretary-General Raja Ashfaq Sarwar told the general house meeting of the LHCBA that the party would participate in the long march with heart and soul. He said PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif had told the coalition partner that they would not flinch unless all the deposed judges, including Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, were restored. He said the PML-N would hold Musharraf’s trial for treason because he overthrew a democratically-elected government. The party had decided to eliminate the role of the armed forces from politics forever, he added.
LHCBA Secretary Rana Asadullah, advocates Khadim Husain Qaiser and Pir Kalim Ahmad Khurshid, former LHCBA president Ahmad Awais, Khwaja Mahmood Ahmad, MNA Nasir Ahmad Bhutta and PML-N Ulema Mashaikh Wing Lahore president Mian Muhammad Afzal also spoke on the occasion.