By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
Jaipur: The deadly virus directly affecting the sanctity of the Constitution, rule of law and fundamental rights of the accused is fast spreading as district bar associations, one after another, are denying legal services to and, in some cases, banning lawyers from representing Muslim terrorism suspects.
In the latest development, the Jaipur Bar Association has decided not to represent any of the accused in the May 13 Jaipur bombing in which 58 people were killed. By doing so, the association is accepting the police version blindly and taking the accused as convict.
In Uttar Pradesh, some district bar associations have banned lawyers from representing the accused in the court premises bombings that took place last year.
The Rajasthan police, which could not make any headway in 100 days after the blast, all of a sudden arrested seven people from Kota district in the state on August 25. On the same day Shahbaz Hussain as main accused was arrested from Lucknow. The Rajasthan police arrested four more persons from Kota on September 1. All these arrests were made in connection with the Jaipur serial blasts.
While the bar association has announced not to represent the terrorism accused, the seven people arrested on August 25 from Kota have filed bail applications as their remand is ending today (September 7). And Rajasthan People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) president advocate Prem Krishna Sharma has come forward to represent the accused, says a report in The Hindu.
Among the detained accused is an elderly physician Ishaq Qureshi. He has been arrested only because he knows some Sajid Mansuri, an alleged SIMI activist. Sharma has been quoted by the paper saying: “Merely knowing Sajid Mansuri who the Gujarat police claim masterminded the blasts does not make anyone criminal.” Sharma has decided to represent the accused in the Jaipur serial blasts, ignoring the pressure from his colleagues.