Lawyers who take up terror cases get the flak in UP

LAWYERS VS TERROR: Three lawyers have filed a petition in the Allahabad HC seeking protection.

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Lucknow: Sixty-one-year-old Lucknow lawyer Mohammed Shoaib was allegedly beaten up by his colleagues. His fault – his client Naushad, a HUJI terror suspect, is an accused in the November 2007 Lucknow court blasts.

“I always feel threatened. I was attacked in Faizabad, in Lucknow, outside court. Lawyers even came to my chamber. They broke my glasses and beat me up,” Shoaib said.

Other lawyers in UP, too, have been assaulted for taking up cases of terror suspects. Some of them have even given up the cases due to threats. In fact, it is not just the lawyers who have been assaulted, even terror suspects were not spared.

Some recent cases are:

2007: Three Jaish-e-Mohammad terror suspects, who allegedly masterminded Rahul Gandhi's kidnapping, were assaulted by lawyers in a Lucknow court.

2006: Walliullah Khan, the main accused in the Sankatmochan blast in Varanasi was assaulted by lawyers in the city court complex.

2006: Sankatmochan blast accused assaulted by lawyers in Varanasi.

2005: Bar members beat up a Faizabad court blast suspect and his lawyer.

But now some of the lawyers have sought the intervention of the Allahabad High Court.

Zafaryab Jeelani from the Council for lawyers said, “Here the conscience is threatened. We cannot function in a fearless manner and perform our duties.”

Article 22 (1) of the Constitution gives every accused a right to be defended by a lawyer.

While lawyers' anger towards rising terror attacks is understandable but by not allowing a suspect to defend himself in the court of law, lawyers are seriously hampering the criminal justice system which clearly believes in the legal maxim that a person is 'innocent until proven guilty.