Lawyers of Multan on Thursday observed complete strike and boycotted the courts proceedings and vowed to continue their struggle till the restoration of November 3 judiciary. They also organised a demonstration and shouted slogans in favour of their demands.
Earlier, protest meetings were held under the chairmanship of Najaf Ali Chavan, president, District Bar, which was addressed by the senior lawyers, including Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) Vice-Chairman Mirza Aziz Akbar Baig, Qamar-uz-Zaman Butt, Mazhar Jamil Qureshi, Shaikh Faheem Ahmed.
Talking to newsmen here, Mirza Aziz Akbar Baig opposed to accepting anything short of the sacked judges restoration and has begun contacting like-minded political parties to rally support for this purpose. He said that we would maintain our pressure on two major political parties, PPP and PML-N, while ANP had already extended its full support to lawyers' cause.
When asked that SCBA President Aitzaz Ahsan has claimed that over 100 newly elected members of the National Assembly, mainly belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, political activists, civil society representatives, lawyers and retired and sacked judges would demonstrate outside the parliament building on March 9, if President Pervez Musharraf's November 3 acts were not reversed. Mirza replied that it is not impossible and the number of parliamentarians may be increased between 150 and 200.
He has already announced lawyers long march in Islamabad from Lahore on March 9, the day marking the first sacking of deposed chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry by the President. He said leaders of many political parties supporting the sacked judges' restoration had assured him that they would march along lawyers and judges on the GT Road for the restoration of superior judiciary to its pre-November 3 status.
The PBC vice chairman said ex-judges and lawyers from Karachi would also join the march on March 9 while a procession of retired and sacked judges, and lawyers would reach the capital from Peshawar.