ISLAMABAD, April 28: The Supreme Court on Monday accepted a compromise between a convict and the heirs of 11 people who were murdered in Lalamusa 15 years ago.

The court asked the counsel for the convict to deposit the Diyat in the name of heirs of the deceased and adjourned the case till May 8.

Khaspur Union Council Nazim Habibullah brokered the deal.

The case pertained to a clash between two groups when some people were trying to end the enmity.

An anti-terrorism court had awarded death sentence to 18 persons on the charges of killing 11 people.

The Lahore High Court had acquitted three of the accused and upheld capital punishment of the others. Three of them died in the jail.

The Supreme Court maintained the death sentence of Mohammad Afzal and Ghazanfar and converted the punishment of others into life imprisonment with an order they would not be entitled to remission under the jail manual.

The heirs of the deceased entered into compromise with Mohammad Afzal but not with Ghazanfar.

A large number of villagers, mostly elderly ladies, were brought to the courtroom to show that all the heirs of the murdered agreed to the compromise.

The relatives of the deceased, after the court proceedings, complained that the main accused in the case, Ashraf alias Acha, had not been arrested.

lawyers chambers: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the advocate-general Punjab, and Malik Qayyum, a retired judge of the LHC, to meet the chief justice of Lahore High Court and solve the issue of lawyers’ chambers amicably.

At the last hearing the Supreme Court had suspended the operation of the chief justice of Lahore High Court’s administrative order, wherein, he had ordered almost 50 lawyers to vacate their offices situated in the State Bank Building, Lahore.

On Monday, Advocate-General Punjab Shabbar Raza Rizvi stated that the government might offer them alternative office space. The counsel for the petitioner lawyers, stated that they wanted the alternative office arrangement on the premises.

Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry asked Malik Abdul Qayyum and advocate-general Punjab and resolve the matter amicably.

The dispute had risen when chief justice Lahore High Court, through an administrative order on March 21, 2003, had ordered about 50 lawyers to vacate their offices as the high court had purchased the said land from the Evacuee Board in 1996.

The eight petitioners are Chaudhry Ashraf Wahla, Syed Ahmad Saeed Kirmani, Syed Afzal Haider, Khawar Akram Bhatti, Ms Robeena Sulehri, Zulfikar Ali Bhatti, Khurram Shahzad Baig, and B. A Fakhri.

The petitioners have stated that they moved into the offices in 1960, and if the department wanted to sell the building, they should have been given preference.