Lawyers across India protest UP blasts

IN PROTEST MODE: Lawyers across India are in protest mode, vowing to avenge the deaths of their colleagues.

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New Delhi: After the serial blasts that rocked courts in three cities across the state of Uttar Pradesh on Friday, lawyers all across the country have gone on strike.

Lawyers in UP preferred to put patriotism before duty and the UP Bar Association Secretary, G M Shukla said, "I will prefer not to take fees for a person who engages in anti-terrorist activities.”

As they recover from the terror attack on their fraternity, lawyers are vowing to avenge the deaths of five of their colleagues who were killed in the attack. They have called for a Uttar Pradesh Bandh on Monday.

The Jharkhand State Bar Council (JSBC) too has decided that lawyers across the state will abstain from work on November 26.

JSBC Chairman P C Tripathy told news agency UNI that the government should provide compensation of about Rs 10 lakh to the families of those who died in the blasts and Rs 5 lakh to the injured in the blasts.

Tripathy also told UNI that the JSBC was demanding that adequate security be provided to legal officers and advocates throughout the state.

Karnataka too is toeing the same line with lawyers across the state boycotting court proceedings on Saturday.

Lawyers in Gulbarga, Shahapur, Shurpur and Chittapur took out processions shouting slogans against the attacks.

Friday's attack was focused on three courts in UP — in Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi — and the theory that’s now gaining credence is that this was a retaliatory strike by militants.

All the three civil courts that were targetted are holding trials of major terrorist attacks in Uttar Pradesh.

But it goes back much further than this. In several cases of terrorist violence, lawyers have refused to defend the accused.

Also, recently, lawyers of the the district court in Lucknow attacked three Jaish operatives who were being produced as they are accused of plotting to abduct Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi.

(With agency inputs)