PESHAWAR: :Lawyers on Saturday observed province-wide strike on the call of Pakistan Bar Council against continuous hike in prices of essential commodities including petroleum products and exorbitant bills of electricity.

A day earlier, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council vice chairman Zar Badshah Khan and its executive committee chairman Syed Mubashir Shah had endorsed the decision of Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and asked all its member associations in the province to boycott proceedings of all the courts in the province.

Lawyers of Peshawar also held a general body meeting and a protest demonstration under the aegis of the district bas association.

The general body meeting was chaired by Peshawar Bar Association president Ishfaq Ahmad Khalil whereas its general secretary Iftikhar Hussain Samandar moderated the meeting.

Threaten to launch 2007-like protest movement

The participants of the meeting then took out a procession from the Peshawar sessions court that turned into a public meeting near Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly at Rehman Baba Square.

They were raising slogans against exorbitant electricity and gas bills and escalating prices of essential commodities including petroleum products. They announced that they would set up a protest camp on the premises of the sessions court on next Saturday (Sep 16) if the rulers failed to mend their ways.

The demonstration was also attended by members of KP Bar Council including Noor Alam Khan, Syed Taimoor Ali Shah and Ali Zaman, president of Peshawar High Court Bar Association Tariq Afridi, its secretary general Lajbar Khan Khalil and other office-bearers.

The speakers said that the country was ruled by International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the oppressive conditions imposed by it for extending loan to the country were forcing people to commit suicides.

They warned the government that if inflated electricity bills were not withdrawn and petroleum prices were not reduced, lawyers would begin a protest movement across the province.

They said that lawyers would not tolerate ‘oppressive’ policies of the government and would begin a protest movement on the pattern of their 2007 agitation against a military ruler for the supremacy of the Constitution and upholding the rule of law.

They said that inflation had made life of people miserable. They said that people were committing suicide out of frustration.

The speakers said that billions of rupees had been spent on the perks and privileges of the privileged class with the common man bearing that burden. They also said that no anti-people and unconstitutional law or ordinance was acceptable to lawyers and they would fully resist such laws. The protesters later dispersed peacefully.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2023