Cops, lawyers clash at Tis Hazari over parking
NEW DELHI: A parking dispute at the Tis Hazari courts in north Delhi on Saturday snowballed into a violent clash between the police and lawyers that left 50 people injured, including two advocates hit by gunshots, and many parked vehicles burned and vandalised.
The confrontation started at around 2pm and lasted for over two hours, at the end of which a dozen motorcycles and a police vehicle had been set on fire, eight prison vans vandalised, and the windows of many lawyers’ chambers and cars smashed.
The fire from the torched vehicles ended up burning a portion of a court building, and the billowing smoke left judges, prisoners and others gasping for breath. The clashes also saw many undertrial prisoners trapped between the two groups, eyewitnesses said.
The police said they saved several prisoners in the lock-up by forming a human chain; lawyers said they rescued four prisoners from a jail van that was being vandalised.
According to both the parties, the trigger was a dispute over a lawyer parking his car near the court’s lock-up area. The lawyer was asked not to park there because it would obstruct the movement of jail vans, the police said. This led to a heated argument that turned into a scuffle and soon erupted into violence.
The lawyers said that at least 40 of them were injured, two of them by bullets fired by the police and the rest in a baton-charge. The police said they knew of only eight lawyers getting injured.
“One person who had a bullet injury to the shoulder has been admitted. The bullet was removed in a minor procedure and the person was taken to the hospital ICU {intensive care unit}. There were four other people who had cuts and lacerations from the scuffle. They were just given first aid,” said a St Stephen’s hospital personnel.
Joint commissioner of police (JCP) Alok Kumar said that an assistant sub-inspector fired two rounds when lawyers assaulted policemen and stormed the prisoners’ lock-up.
The bullets left two advocates, Vijay Verma and Ravi Yadav, with injuries to a shoulder and a hand, respectively. Verma underwent a medical procedure at St Stephen’s Hospital, where the bullet was removed. Yadav was said to be out of danger.
THE CONFRONTATION LASTED FOR OVER TWO HOURS, AT THE END OF WHICH A DOZEN MOTORCYCLES AND A POLICE VEHICLE WERE SET ON FIRE