‘Poor passenger load’  brings  flights to a halt

LAHORE: Several flights of PIA and private airlines were cancelled to and from Lahore airport due to poor passenger load on Friday.  Flights were being cancelled due to poor passengers load, unavailability of planes and technical faults. However, the spokesman for the national carrier said the holy month of Ramazan was the only reason for the poor load of passengers. Talking to The Nation, he said that people would restrict their movement in Ramazan. He said that passenger load would be normal at the end of Ramazan. PIA had to cancel its Lahore-Quetta-Lahore, Lahore-Karachi-Lahore and Lahore-Islamabad-Lahore flights with call signs Pk-322-23, Pk-316-17 and Pk-654-55 on Friday.  Apart from PIA, some private airlines’ flights were also cancelled. They included Serene Air, Shaheen Air, Air Blue and Uzbekistan Air. Two Lahore-Dubai-Lahore flights of Emirates were delayed. –Staff Reporter

 Missing girl found murdered

LAHORE : City police on Friday recovered the body of a nine-year-old girl from a drain in Shahdara police precincts. The body was moved to the morgue for an autopsy.  Police identified the victim as 9-year-old Muqaddas, who went missing on Thursday when she was playing outside her house in the same locality. Some passersby spotted her body alongside a drain and alerted the police by phone on early Friday. The body was shifted to the morgue by Edhi ambulance service.  A police investigator said apparently it was case of homicide. “Police (investigators) are working on this case and the culprits would be arrested very soon,” the officer said, requesting anonymity. No arrest was made yet. The police last night filed a murder case against unidentified killers and launched the probe.  An official said that the autopsy report would establish the cause of death. Further investigation was underway. –Staff Reporter

 Lawyers go on strike

LAHORE:  The members of Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) Friday held a strike and boycotted courts’ proceedings to condemn the failure of newly established IT system of the Lahore High Court.

The bar leader through general house meeting had called the strike, urging its members not to appear before the courts even in urgent cases. The bar said that the cases could not be fixed before the benches due to errors in the IT system.  The lawyers said that institution of urgent cases till 11:00am was not acceptable and demanded restoration of old system. They said that millions of rupees were spent on I.T system but it had multiplied the miseries of lawyers and litigants.

Earlier, a woman fell unconscious on the ground when she was told that her case mistakenly was fixed before a court due to computer error in the IT system.

Nasreen Bibi had come from Mandi Bahauddin to attend the proceedings of a bail matter of her son allegedly involved in kidnapping of a woman. She was told that her son’s case was fixed before Justice Aalia Neelum but when she went there she was told that her case had been referred to the relevant bench. –Staff Reporter