Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N, with other opposition parties and lawyers' bodies, on Monday gave a call for a nationwide strike on Tuesday to protest the deportation of the former Prime Minister to Jeddah when he returned here to end a seven-year exile.
PML-N, Islamist alliance Muthahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Tehrik-e-Insaaf (Social Justice Party) headed by cricketer- turned-politician Imran Khan, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and Pakistan Bar Council have asked the people to observe a hartal.
However, the Pakistan People's Party headed by Benazir Bhutto has not joined the call.
SCBA President Munir A Mallik said if Sharif has been arrested, then law demanded that he should be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours.
"This is a simple case of kidnapping," he said.
Malik said like March 9, when Chief Justice Iftikhar M Chaudhry was suspended, today too was a "black day for the country" as the Supreme Court judgement was "flouted".
Lawyers all over the country would boycott the courts tomorrow, he said.