Cops, lawyers come to blows, prisoners get caught in middle

Police and lawyers blame each other for violence at court

NEWDELHI: Packed into navy blue prison vans marked with smashed windows, most undertrial prisoners left the Tis Hazari Court after 6pm on Saturday.

As the vans were stuck in traffic jams, relatives and friends of the prisoners chased the vehicles to exchange a few words with the inmates. This was unusual. As per norms, undertrial prisoners are supposed to be inside jail before sunset.

Less than three hours earlier, the prisoners were caught in a violent clash between policemen and lawyers that left over 50 injured and nearly 30 vehicles burnt or smashed. Police and lawyers claimed they rescued the prisoners in the court lock-up and jail van.

It all began at 2pm when a policeman stopped an advocate from parking his car outside the court lock-up, a space reserved for about a dozen jail vans. It led to a scuffle.

A lawyer, Varun Jain, said the scuffle resulted in the advocate being forcibly confined in the lock-up with other prisoners. “Word spread and we landed outside the lock-up to get our colleague released. We had a heated exchange and the police beat us up. One of them fired multiple rounds, hitting two of our colleagues,” Jain said.

But police said the advocate was not locked up. “They manhandled the policemen before setting fire to a police jeep and a dozen motorcycles. We called in reinforcements and senior officers arrived at the scene to control the situation,” said Alok Kumar, a joint commissioner of police.

The officer said it was amid all this vandalism that a group of more than 100 lawyers forcibly entered the lock-up and attacked the policemen. “In self-defence, and to save the prisoners, assistant sub-inspector Pawan fired in the air. That hit two advocates,” JCP Kumar said.

A criminal law lawyer, 40-year-old Vijay Verma, was shot in his right shoulder. The bullet was later removed and he was admitted in St Stephen’s Hospital’s ICU. The other lawyer hit by a bullet was 32-year-old Ravi Yadav. He was hit in his hand, but is out of danger.

Harendra Singh, additional deputy commissioner of police (north), said the prisoners were under threat from the lawyers. He and his men had to form a human chain to move them from one lock-up to another.

“We were suffocated by the smoke and had to use drinking water to douse motorcycles that