Disclaimer:

(i) This post is written hurriedly so pardon the grammatical and structural mistakes (if any).

(ii) The post is primarily written to highlight the true picture about what happened today at the main civil court in Bangalore. What is being projected in the media seems utterly biased.

(iii) Hearsay accounts and secondary sources have been used for this piece. The author wasn’t present at the civil court and doesn’t undertake any liability for the authenticity of the sources used.

(iv) This piece HAS to be published so that the truth behind what happened in the civil court of Bangalore comes out.

Friday was one of the darkest days in the history of the Bar in Karnataka. Lawyers were literally hunted down and beaten up with no mercy being shown to them by anyone. The cops had taken it upon themselves to undertake this heinous act. The place of occurrence was the civil court.

12:30 PM-In the afternoon, at the law firm that I work, news reached us that there was a huge fight which had emerged at the City Civil Court Complex. An acquaintance present over there had informed us that a fight had broken out between media persons and lawyers with lawyers having physically assaulted media persons. The fight was apparently for denial of access by media persons to lawyers present at the civil court to witness the hearing of a former’s state minister’s case. While witnessing the news on television, footage was being shown of lawyers beating up media persons and the police being called upon to intervene.

2:00 PM- The news channels continue to project the scene as entirely the lawyers fault. But, they also admit to being unsure as to whether lawyers were actually involved in the incident that occurred or was it an imposter dressed in a lawyer’s attire who was working for personal or political mileage.

2:30 PM- The news channels keep repeating the same footage of the ‘lawyer’ beating up media persons. However, the veracity of the person being a lawyer has now taken a backseat. Things start getting out of hand with the city civil court complex turning into a literal war zone.

3:30 PM- Multiple phone calls are received simultaneously stating that advocates per se are being hunted down and beaten up, injured, threatened and the like.

3:50 PM- Gruesome account emerges which sends shockwaves throughout the office. Advocates have been holed up in individual court rooms by the police and are being selectively assaulted given that they are ready and available prey, almost like the Nazis did to the Jews in concentration camps.

4:30 PM- One acquaintance informs us that advocate vehicles are being burnt throughout the civil court complex by the police while on television, it is being reported that advocates are burning down vehicles. The selective assault on advocates in the court continues unabated at the civil court. We all shudder to think that if we had been on the litigation side, we would have been holed up in one of those court rooms with the police waiting to pounce on us.

5:30 PM- Word spreads around office that 2-3 advocates have died and one judge has been injured. Yet, there is no news of the same available anywhere in the media. Messages from the legal fraternity start flooding our email inboxes that advocates injuries and deaths are going ahead unreported. Only few marginal news reports cover advocate injuries.

6:00 PM- We observe smoke emerging from the civil court which is nearby our office. Fear spreads throughout the office with advice being given on removal of advocate stickers from vehicles. A friend even calls and tells me that ‘don’t be spotted in a black coat or even a white shirt and a black pant, they’re hunting us down….’

7:30 PM- Complete chaos on the streets emerges as advocates start taking detours and alternate routes to reach home. Information emerges that few friends practicing in the civil court have left their belongings-mobiles, vehicles etc. and either escaped through the back side of the civil court or have come back walking.

9:00 PM- As I leave from office, I reluctantly remove my advocate sticker from my vehicle because I admit to myself that being a braveheart at this stage would not serve any purpose and would be utterly foolish.

I have tried my best to project what happened from what I’ve gathered through my secondary sources on this horrible day when an entire profession was targeted. It almost reached a stage of rioting with the police taking on advocates heads on as a sect or a group which has to be finished.

If anybody was there at the civil court today and actually witnessed what happened, please do add on your comments.

The media is projecting only one side of the story, the other side, the side of all those innocent advocates who actually joined litigation for the passion of the law is nowhere being reflected. Awareness needs to be spread about the gruesomeness of what happened today. The government machinery has promised a judicial probe.

However, going by the record of governance that we have, it is highly doubtful whether an effort would actually be taken to actually hone in on that one advocate who began all this, for it still remains a moot question, as to whether he actually belonged to a profession which today was reduced to a hunted category.