ARGUING FOR THE DAMNED

What’s it like representing a terror suspect? Your client may be acquitted, but threats to your life become commonplace, loved ones shun you, question your motives

Advocate R Mahadevan has relatives who won’t talk to him any more. They don’t understand why he represents ‘people who hate their country’.

“I tried explaining the importance of a defence lawyer, but it doesn’t help,” Mahadevan says. He is currently representing suspects in the Bangalore blasts case of 2008, which killed 2 and injured 20.

It’s not easy arguing for the damned. Threats of violence and death are common. Some lawyers find notes stuck on their cars, detailing the whereabouts of their family. And then there are the attacks from within their circle — friends distance themselves; neighbours ask, why do you do it? At a family wedding, a relative may start an argument; peers may attack you verbally and even physically.

In Lucknow, Mohammad Shoaib was beaten up in a courthouse, by lawyers, for defending Aftab Alam Ansari, accused in the 2007 UP court blasts case. Charges against him were later withdrawn. “I had evidence that Ansari was at a doctor’s office on the day of the blast,” Shoaib says.

But terror is one of those crimes where you are guilty, to most, until proven innocent. Which is why, legal experts say, the criminal defence attorney is even more vital. Multiple acquittals in cases like the Akshardham temple attack of 2002 (all six accused acquitted) and the Delhi serial blasts of 2005 (two of three acquitted), with judgements raising questions about the investigation, underline this point.

The legal cell of the Jamiat Ulema-iHind, one of India’s largest Muslim NGOs, is currently funding representation for over 600 people accused in cases across the country, most but not all of them Muslim. Since 2007, they have seen 120 acquitted.

“Lawyers are routinely threatened and the establishment makes light of it,” says Gulzar Azmi, secretary of the legal cell.