CHANDIGARH: The ongoing lawyers strike intensified further as hundreds of lawyers from Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh courted arrest here on March 2, to press for a judicial inquiry into the fate of Kulwant Singh, an advocate, his wife and child, whom they allege were killed by the police.
On the joint call given by the Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association and Action Committee, more than 2000 representatives drawn from more than 86 Bar associations assembled near the High Court premises, and held a rally.
The gatherings were addressed by a number of speakers, including presidents and secretaries of district bar associations.
Later the realists took the road adjacent to the Rock Garden and marched in procession toward the Punjab Civil Secretariat. On the way they managed to force their way through the barricade erected on the main road.
However, after 30 minutes of slogan shouting, the precisionists courted arrest and were herded into the waiting Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU) buses. A number of buses were pressed into service by the local Administration for carrying them to the Central Police Station.
According to police, 939 advocates were arrested under Section 107/151 Cr Pc and taken to the Sectors 17 and 3, police stations. Later, all of them were released, it added.
The President of Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association, G.C.Dhuriwala, condemned the indifference of the Beant Singh government to their demand, adding that the agitation would be taken to its logical end.
He said the state government cannot shy away from its responsibility to hold an independent inquiry to book the guilty as it is a question of justice.
Speaker after speaker charged the state government with concealing facts, claiming that, in spite of the state chief minister announcement that an independent inquiry will be held, nothing concrete has materialized. The participants also expressed their opposition to the filing of a writ petition as decided earlier by the Bar Council.
Apprehending that such a move could weaken the struggle, they urged the leadership to continue the indefinite strike and even suggested a fast unto death for pressurizing the government.
The police had a tough time persuading a woman lawyer who insisted on taking the prohibited road on the grounds that she was not violating Section 144, on the intervention of senior police officers she was later allowed to take the route.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 5, 1993
