Striking lawyers demand suspension of police officials

Striking lawyers demand suspension of police officials
UNITED NEWS OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, MARCH 14: Lawyers on Tuesday began the second phase of a relay hunger strike to demand suspension of police officials responsible for February 24 crackdown as the agitation entered its 20th day.

Among the participants were secretary of the Supreme Court Bar Association Priya Hingorani, secretary of Delhi High Court Bar Association Anoop Bagai, secretary of Delhi Bar Council Sanjay Jain, secretary of New Delhi Bar Association A U Khan and secretary of Shahdara Bar Association Surender Sharma.

Nearly 12,000 advocates from all over the country were marching towards Parliament House to present a memorandum to Prime Minister Vajpayee in protest against controversial amendments to the Civil Procedure Code and proposed changes in the Advocates Act.

It is still unclear how the trouble started but more than 80 protestors were injured as police burst teargas shells, fired rubber bullets and used water cannons to disperse them. Several of them suffered multiple injuries.

Lawyers claim the police crackdown on protestors was unprovoked, brutal and inhuman. The coordination committee of various bar associations has decided to observe February 24 every year as black day.

Agitating lawyers are demanding that officials responsible for the crackdown be suspended immediately. Among those being held responsible include DCP Pranab Nanda besides ACPs T S Bhalla and Vijay Malik. Lawyers are also demanding the transfer of Joint Commissioner R K Niyogi.

Also sitting on hunger strike today were additional secretary(civil) of the Delhi bar association (dba) Sanjiv nasiar, additional secretary (criminal) of the dba murari Tiwari, secretary of the debt recovery tribunal bar association M.S. Saluja, secretary of the sales tax bar association (stba) P.D. Gupta, secretary of the Delhi tax bar association (dtba) rakesh Bharadwaj, secretary of the kashmere gate bar association (kgba) Rajesh Gupta and secretary of the central administrative tribunal a.K. Behra.

Dba secretary Rajiv khosla was unable to join as he is still inhospital.

Among those who began the first phase of hunger strike yesterdaywere dhcba president a.S. Chandhiok, dbc chairman B.S. Sherawat, ndba president K.K. Sarin, dba president Hari chand, sba president s.R. Raghav, dtba president R.A. Bansal, stba president R.K. Batra and kgba president H.S. Thakur.

Tommorow, vice-presidents of the associations will participate inthe agitation. Executive and other members of various bodies will follow after that. The coordination committee of bar associations has decided to intensify the agitation in the absence of any positive response from the government.

Mr Chandhiok, Mr Sherawat and six other leaders met lt governorvijai kapoor yesterday in an effort to break the deadlock. No categorical assurance was apparently forthcoming and Mr Kapoor sought more time to respond.