On a strike call given by Punjab Bar Council (PbBC) the city lawyers on Thursday boycotted courts in the provincial capital in protest against killings of three lawyers in Karachi.
The lawyers wore black armbands, hosted black flags at the bar offices and stayed away from courts. They spent time at the bar offices and condemned the killings in strongest words in meetings and their corners meetings. The PBC and Lahore High Court bar Association (LHCBA) also condemned the incident and demanded of the government to immediately arrest the killers and punish them strictly under the law of the land. The bars asked the government to provide security to the members of the lawyers’ community. Concerns were found in the lawyers about consistent attacks on the lawyers all over the country by unidentified gunmen.
The lawyers appeared in the Lahore High Court only in urgent cases and requested the judges to stop the proceedings in the cases to make the protest call a success and to show solidarity with families of the assassinated members of the lawyers’ community.
Accepting the requests by the lawyers the judges left the open courts and went to their retiring rooms and chambers where they only heard urgent cases.
Like Lahore, in rest of the districts of Punjab the lawyers observed complete protest strike terming the lawyers’ killings a sign of lawlessness and failure of the government in the maintaining law and order in the country.
