HYDERABAD, Oct 17: Lawyers’ movement seems to have suffered a setback in Hyderabad as High Court Bar Association’s Hyderabad chapter and Hyderabad District Bar Association stand divided into two rival groups on the issue of October 18 visit of the deposed chief justice.

While PPP-backed office-bearers of the HCBA and the HDBA and People’s Lawyers Forum (PLF) on Friday announced boycott of deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry’s programme in Hyderabad, their rival group vowed to accord a warm welcome to him on his arrival in the city on Saturday.

The boycott announcement was made by general secretary HCBA Allah Bachayo Soomro, who is holding post of Additional Advocate-General (AAG) Sindh and Hyderabad division PLF president and president HDBA Chaudhry Bashir Gujjar, vice president HDBA Abdul Khaliq Leghari, a member of the Sindh Bar Council (SBC) Fazal Qadir Memon and others.

“We will boycott it because we have been by-passed by those who planned to hold it on October 18 given the fact that it will be death anniversary of followers of Benazir Bhutto who died on this day last year in Karsaz suicide bombings”, said Mr Soomro.

It was only vice president of HDBA Abdul Khaliq Leghari who was part of on-going protest movement until Thursday but his today’s position indicates that he wouldn’t be joining movement anymore in future. About his future plans of protest under lawyers’ movement, he said he would abide by HDBA’s decision.

Announcing boycott, Soomro referred to a joint meeting of PLF divisional and district bodies which took this decision and said that they would participate in death anniversary programme by holding fateha khawani and condolence gatherings for those killed on October 18 last year. He said that they were not even informed about deposed CJP’s programme.

When reminded that he is AAG Sindh and also remains HCBA general secretary, he said that his seat had not fallen vacant and he could only be removed from his post through a general body meeting’s resolution.

Mr Gujjar said that he had not been consulted regarding publication of a pamphlet pasted in court regarding deposed CJP’s visit to the city. He said that now lawyers don’t boycott courts on Thursday and appear in courts while one hour’s boycott programme of courts had been shelved also.

HDBA vice president Abdul Khaliq Leghari expressed his disappointment that he had been part of lawyers movement from day one but he was not taken on board for CJP’s programme.

On the other hand their rival group, led by Abdul Sattar Kazi, Zahoor A. Baloch, Ayaz Tunio and Khadim Hussain Khoso, staged a demonstration outside press club to express support to deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry by raising full-throated slogans for him.

“We are not going to celebrate anything. In fact it’s a day of protest for us because we are still demanding reinstatement of deposed CJP as per demand of Benazir Bhutto. Why don’t these people demand inquiry for suicide bombings of October 18 when they are observing death anniversary?”, Mr Kazi asked.

He said that HCBA had passed a resolution to invite deposed CJP so how could Mr Soomro say that no one was consulted. “Its to see that Soomro is opposing me and everyone also knows that until recent past he was poised to expel Fazal Qadir Memon from SBC but today he is siding with him”, Kazi said. He stated that lawyers don’t have any conflict with government.

“It’s a debatable point whether AAG Soomro could hold his official position while he is general secretary of HCBA but we have favoured him otherwise it would have been done by now. Its painful that he is paying us this way, he said.