By IANS,
Jaipur: Protests by Rajasthan Police personnel continued on a large scale Saturday against a high court order directing the state government not to allow Jaipur’s police commissioner to hold office for 15 days until a report on the lawyer-police clashes is submitted.
Policemen continued to refuse food offered to them at police reserve lines in various districts and several police stations across the state including in Jaipur Saturday, contending that they were doing their law and order duty at the assembly building Wednesday when the lawyers turned violent and started pelting stones on them.
The policemen said that a baton charge was the last resort to control and disperse the mob of violent lawyers.
“If any action is taken against a senior police officer for executing his duty, then it would be an injustice and put a dent in the morale of the police force,” an assistant sub inspector who was agitating at the Jaipur Police Reserve Lines told IANS.
Hundreds of policemen had skipped dinner and shouted slogans in Jaipur Friday.
Protests continued at some police stations in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Sriganganagar and some other districts Thursday.
A division bench of Chief Justice Amitava Roy and Justice Ajay Rastogi, while hearing a plea on the two-day long clashes between police and lawyers, Friday said a sitting judge of the court will conduct the inquiry and submit a report within 15 days.
Clashes between lawyers and police here Wednesday and Thursday left at least 60 people, including over 40 policemen, injured, while about two dozen people, including advocates and police officers, were injured in the clashes outside the state assembly building during the ongoing budget session Wednesday.
To draw attention to their demands, the lawyers broke security barricades put up by police and marched towards the assembly building, leading to a police baton charge on them.
The violence again took place Thursday after a group of lawyers torched the temporary lock-up used for holding prisoners in the court premises in the morning.
Judicial services were crippled as the lawyers continued to boycott work Friday.
The lawyers said the state government is yet to look into their demands for which they had taken out the rally Wednesday.
The demands include a residential project on subsidised rates for lawyers, allowance of Rs.2,000 per month for lawyers with less than five years of experience, allocation of Rs.10 crore to the Rajasthan Lawyers’ Welfare Board and the constitution of a Lawyers’ Welfare Act.