Jamaat-ud-Dawa held a rally outside the Lahore Press Club where they urged the Pakistan Army to give a "befitting response" to NATO; the leader of the party said "We have to eliminate all stations and bases given to the CIA if we want to end terrorism in Pakistan". Public and media The NATO attack received considerable criticism and caused widespread outrage among the country's civil society and media, with some perceiving it as an intentional act of war that may have been pre-planned. Numerous protests were organised in several cities for a number of consecutive days after the attack occurred. Members of the public demanded an end to the US alliance and pressurised the government to consider pulling out from the War on Terror, permanently halt all NATO supplies, expel American citizens in Pakistan and plan a tit-for-tat military retaliation. Some locals in the tribal agencies demanded those who carried out the attack to be handed over to Pakistan. Hundreds of people organised a gathering outside the American consulate in Karachi to lodge a protest. Various lawyers' associations throughout the country boycotted their usual court proceedings and observed a strike to mark the day. Many university students also boycotted their classes to protest. Students in Peshawar blocked a main road where they chanted "Quit the war on terror" and other anti-American slogans. Schoolteachers and students in Azad Kashmir expressed their outrage during a protest in the capital Muzaffarabad. Protests were also organised in the northern towns of Skardu in Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral. Some faculty members of the University of the Punjab, the country's oldest university, passed a "resolution" in which they backed the Pakistan Army, stating that "Pakistan does not want war, but war is being imposed on it" and said the War on Terror was a "drama" staged by the "US elite" and a certain group of rich international bankers referred to as the "high cabal" by Winston Churchill who wanted to establish a "world government". The Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce & Industry condemned the attack as well. Local television cable operators pulled out western channels such as BBC World News to deter what they called "anti-Pakistan bias" in the media. Leaders of Pakistani Christian communities also condemned the attack and pledged their support for the armed forces along with calling for a UN inquiry; speaking on the occasion, the president of the Pakistan Catholic Bishops' Conference