Lawyers attacked - on streets, police stations, inside courtrooms
A 65-year-old lawyer in Ujjain was beaten inside the courtroom in front of the judge. In Indore, an advocate found out that his junior for three months was actually a policeman. The police in Thiruvananthapuram arrested a 43-year-old lawyer. The common thread in the stories of all these lawyers is that they represent Muslim men accused of being terrorists or members of SIMI. It’s not just the system that has turned their back on them, even the legal defence of a terror suspect is seen as a betrayal of the nation — with lawyers facing hostility and attacks on the streets, in police stations and inside courtrooms.
NOOR MOHAMMAD, UJJAIN
In 2008, Noor Mohammad went to Dhar district in 2008 to represent a few alleged SIMI activists. “The bar association there had passed a resolution saying they would neither allow any lawyer from their bar to represent these suspects nor let anybody come from outside.” He was at the entrance of the court, Mohammad says, when a group of BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal activists started beating him. “I somehow ran inside the court. I told the magistrate about the attack. He did not say anything. By then, lawyers inside the courtroom started kicking and pushing me. The magistrate did ask them to stop. But they didn’t and the magistrate sahib didn’t take any action.”
Three months later, Mohammad says, he went to Dhar again to pursue the bail application of his clients because the prosecution had not filed government sanction within the stipulated time. “The prosecution submitted the sanction as soon as they saw me and our bail plea was rejected. As I was leaving, a large group of Sangh activists beat me up. They hit me on my head and I fell unconscious... At the hospital, the police offered to take me home to Ujjain under their protection. They said Sangh activists would come and attack me inside the hospital as well,’’ he said. “I went to the police station and wrote a complaint. The police filed an FIR. I don’t know whether anybody was arrested or not. They (police) didn’t tell me anything.”
Because it was impossible for him to go to Dhar, he sought transfer of the case. A year later, the case was transferred to Indore. “When the people who assassinated Indira and Rajiv Gandhi have a right to defend themselves, why not these boys? The police have no evidence against them and they know their concocted stories will fall flat, that’s why they hate to see a defence lawyer,” Noor Mohammad says.
He gives the example of a case regarding an alleged training camp at Unhel in which five men are in jail. “The police arrested these men in September 2008 saying they were running an arms training camp at Unhel. They said it was happening at three in the night. They even claimed to have recovered an air gun allegedly used to give arms training. There was a huge hue and cry because the place where the police had claimed that the camp existed is a field with roads around it and with constant public movement. Realising that the story could not stick for too long, the police came up with another place. They said the training camp was being held in a narrow alley near the mosque. These men were given five-year imprisonment,” Mohammad says.
Then something very “interesting” happened, he adds. The MP government released them after serving half of their term as amnesty for good conduct on Republic Day last year. “The government came under so much pressure from the Sangh Parivar that within days of their release, they (government) issued another circular saying that people arrested for SIMI links were barred from such amnesty. They were re-arrested. We petitioned before the high court. This appeal is pending for the past year and a half years and these five men have almost completed their terms,” the advocate says... Read more:
