Lawyers attacked — on the streets, in police stations, inside courtrooms

From: Indian Express

Lawyers attacked — on the streets, in police stations, inside courtrooms


by Muzamil Jaleel : New Delhi, Mon Oct 08 2012, 03:51 hrs

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.

A lawyer in Ujjain since 1973, Noor Mohammad admits “consistent pressure” to stay away from such cases. “Even my family has been asking me to leave these cases. But I know these Muslim boys are being constantly booked in fictitious cases. I am sure if legal processes are followed, not a single case can stand the scrutiny of the courts.”

WAJID ALI, INDORE

Noting that anybody representing those accused of SIMI links is seen with suspicion, 61-year-old Ali tells the story of his junior who turned out to be a policeman. “I had this junior who was working with me for three months. One day, a relative of mine, who is a policeman, came to see me. He told me that my junior is a policeman working in the Crime Branch. I was shocked and angry. Later, I received a phone call from this junior and he admitted that he was sent to keep tabs on me and my clients.” Ali said he didn’t complain to the authorities. “It wouldn’t have served any purpose. I was happy that I found it out,’’ he said.

KUTTICHAL SHAHNAWAS, THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

A 43-year-old Thiruvananthapuram-based lawyer, Shahnawas has represented several Muslim men arrested for alleged SIMI links, including in the Hubli case of 2007. “I had gone to represent them in the Hubli case, where 16 Muslim men were held from different parts of the country for their alleged SIMI and terror links. This is when the police and the government started accusing me of representing anti-national cases,’’ he says. The cases in which he has represented Muslim youngsters before the UAPA tribunal include the Panayikulam one involving an alleged secret meeting of SIMI activists at Panayikulam near Aluva, Kerala (August 15, 2006), and the Vagamon training centre case (a secret training camp near Idukki allegedly held in 2007).

Shahnawas’s troubles began when the newspaper Madhayamam carried a report in January this year, exposing how the Kerala Police had put the email accounts of 258 citizens under surveillance, 250 among them prominent Muslims with no previous criminal record. “These email accounts that were put under surveillance included my account as well. The report led to a political storm,” he says. But instead of investigating the surveillance, the government ordered an inquiry into how the list was leaked. On April 30 this year, he was picked up from his home and remanded in police custody. The police accused Shahnawas of masterminding the “theft” of the surveillance list and leaking it to a senior journalist of Madhyamam.

“It was a strange accusation. My own email accounts were part of the surveillance list. I am a victim of this illegal surveillance. But they arrested me. They didn’t ask the journalist who had written the story,” says Shahnawas. What was even stranger, he says, was that while he was in custody, the police did not mention the email account surveillance case. “They only kept asking me to stay away from cases against Muslim men booked in alleged terror cases,” he says.

Shahnawas got out on bail nine days later. “I told the magistrate everything — that I had been framed because the police didn’t want me to represent my clients. He listened but didn’t say anything.”

Crime Branch SP Jolly Cherian, who led the probe, refuted the advocate’s allegation that the police repeatedly asked him to keep away from appearing for Muslims accused in terror cases. “It is totally baseless. Why should police place such a demand before an advocate? It is his right to appear for accused in any case. For us, he was an accused in the email case.’’ Cherian says Shanavas was only assisting other advocates from North India in the terror and SIMI related case. He was one of the advocates involved in such cases. In such a situation, why should police project him as a key figure by making such a demand, Cherian says.

PREM KISHEN SHARMA, JAIPUR

In 2008, the Jaipur High Court Bar passed a resolution against representing any terror suspect. The situation, however, changed when two top lawyers decided to oppose the resolution. Advocate Prem Kishen Sharma, who has been practising since 1958, termed it wrong.

“Everybody has a right to a legal defence and I made it clear that I don’t agree with the boycott,’’ he says. When a top Jaipur advocate, Ajay Jain, agreed to take up a case, it helped. Sharma hasn’t faced any hostility in the court, though. “Many of these younger lawyers have a mob mentality. How can a lawyer question another lawyer’s right to do his professional work?”

Inputs from Shaju Philip in Thiruvananthapuram

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