Lawyers celebrate 'victory' as SSP sent on leave

Buckling under pressure from the protesting lawyers, the Sindh police have sent SSP Hyderabad Dr Farrukh Ali Lanjar on leave on Saturday while giving acting charge of the district to SSP Tando Muhammad Khan. While the lawyers view this development as a successful culmination of their sit-in protest on Hyderabad bypass, some police officials say the legal fraternity has been given a face-saving so that they may retreat from the highways they were blocking in Sindh.

The lawyers, provoked by lodging of FIR on a lawyer owned vehicle for using tinted windows and fancy number plate, were demanding transfer a nd suspension of the SSP whom they blamed for an unjust case. The officials argue that neither the SSP has been suspended nor transferred.

"Dr Farrukh Ali ... is hereby granted leave with permission to leave headquarters on account of private affairs," reads a letter issued by DIG Hyderabad Tariq Razzak Dharejo, dated February 7, on Saturday. The business community of Hyderabad has also expressed disapproval of the manner in which the SSP is being sent on leave.

Some senior figures in the legal fraternity were already conveyed about sending SSP on leave on February 7. After issuance of the letter the lawyers packed up their camp which was set up adjacent to the Wadhu Wah gate on the bypass road. Many lawyers from Pakistan Bar Council, Sindh Bar Council, Sindh High Court Bar Association, Karachi, and Karachi Bar Association, joined the protests.

The lawyers also staged separate protests on the highways in other parts of Sindh, reiterating the demand for removal of SSP Lanjar. The protest started in the afternoon of February 6 and it concluded in less than 48 hours on Saturday. The president Karachi Bar Association Amir Nawaz Waraich while reading out the letter of leave grant announced the protest's end.

He said the lawyers are grateful to the IGP Sindh for accepting their request to remove Lanjar. He then read out the letter verbatim for all lawyers to listen.