KARACHI, April 14: The lawyer fraternity boycotted on Friday the legal proceedings in protest over the killing of over 57 people in the Tuesday bomb blast.
The president of the Karachi Bar Association (KBA), Mehmoodul Hasan, told Dawn that not a single lawyer appeared before any of the courts on the boycott call given by the KBA.
He demanded of the government to arrest the culprits involved in the bomb blast and bring them to book.
He also asked the rulers to ensure safety to the life and property of the common man.
The city courts’ premises gave a deserted look as the court staff did not turn up, although some judicial magistrates and judges reached their respective offices in official vehicles.
The two hotels on the city courts premises also did not pull up their shutters and the stamp vendors also did not open their business.
No legal proceedings were held at the anti-terrorism court on the Queen’s Road and accountability court and anti-narcotics court at Clifton. The judges adjourned the hearings of cases to next dates.
The court police said only 43 under trial prisoners from the Central Prison and 11 UTPs from the District Malir Jail were taken to the courts. But the UTPs were brought back to the jail without any progress in their cases.
According to jail authorities, there was a remarkable decrease in the number of the prisoners’ visitors at the Central Prison, where over 1,000 visitors come to the Central Prison daily during 10am to 5pm. “Today only 10 people came to visit the jail inmates”, they added.
Meanwhile, the legal fraternity in a condolence meeting on Friday demanded that the government should constitute a committee comprising social workers to maintain law and order in Karachi, adds PPI.
They urged City Nazim Mustafa Kamal to name road in Nanakwara after late Haji Hanif Blue who was martyred in Nishtar Park bomb blast on Tuesday.
Social worker and human rights lawyer Nadeem Sheikh Advocate demanded immediate arrest of culprits behind the Nishtar Park explosion.
Asim Iqbal, Shazia Zahoor, Abdul Baseer, Rashid Hussain, Muhammad Yousuf Khan also addressed the meeting and paid tributes to the martyrs and appealed to the masses to follow footsteps of Prophet Muhammad (SAW). —PPI
