PESHAWAR: Local lawyers on Tuesday condemned the police`s failure to arrest the people involved in the May 12, 2007 Karachi 1(illings and calledupon thefederaland Sindh governments and Supreme Court and Sindh High Court chief justices to step in to ensure those arrests and punishment of culprits.

A general body meeting of the Peshawar High Court Bar Association unanimously passed a resolution stating that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was involved in the May 12, 2007 killings as it had announced not to let then Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry visit Karachi.

The lawyers observed black day, wore black armbands and stayed away from courts after 12 noon.

The meeting was chaired by president of the association Fida Gul and addressed by its secretary general Taif Khan, Peshawar Bar Association president Mohammad Ismail Khalil and lawyers Ijaz Anwar, Naveed Akhtar, Ghulam Nabi Khan, FM Sabir and Shaukat Yousafzai.

The speakers said the May 12, 2007 had seen a very barbaric incident when target killers of a political party took life of innocent people, who were out to receive the then chief justice of Pakistan.

They regretted that the judiciary, especially Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, had not taken a suo moto notice of the killings.

The speakers said despite the passage of eight years so far, not a single killer involved in the May 12 incident had been arrested.

They said the MQM target killers were given a freehand by then government of General Pervez Musharraf.

The speakers regretted that compensation was also not paid to legal heirs of the lawyers, who were 1(illed on May 12, 2007.