District court: Group of lawyers beat up policeman over assault case

Lawyer denies ASI was beaten up, uniform torn.

LAHORE:

A group of lawyers thrashed an assistant sub inspector (ASI) at the District and Sessions Court here on Monday.

ASI Sadaqatullah was accosted by the lawyers as he left the courtroom of Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Muhammad Ashiq, witnesses told The Express Tribune.

The lawyers shouted abuse at the ASI and he shouted back. A physical fight ensued and the policeman was roughed up. He was grabbed by his uniform and dragged to a lawyer’s chamber by the group, being slapped and kicked along the way. Other lawyers joined in the melee.

A lawyer who witnessed the incident said that the policeman was pressed to sign a blank piece of paper on which the lawyers would later draw up a statement stating that there had been no physical confrontation between the ASI and the lawyers. The ASI refused to sign. Lahore Bar Association General Secretary Asad Zaidi and other bar members later arrived at the scene and the ASI was released.

The Express Tribune was able to speak to ASI Sadaqatullah on the court premises after he was let out, whilst more than a dozen lawyers were still nearby. He said that they had not told him why they were beating him up. Asked if he would take up the matter further, he did not answer. A Gowalmandi police official later said that the matter had been “resolved” and there would be no case.

Assault case

The motive appeared to have been related to the case for which the ASI had gone to court, as some of the lawyers who attacked him were also representing the petitioner.

The petitioner had asked ADSJ Ashiq to direct Gowalmandi police to register a case, ironically for an alleged assault in which the petitioner’s son-in-law was said to have bean beaten with clubs and steel rods.

The ASI had told the court that the Gowalmandi station house officer (SHO) was awaiting the medico-legal report of the alleged assault from Mayo Hospital.

The judge, in his order disposing of the petition, noted that the petitioner had submitted an affidavit and a photocopy of the medico-legal report purportedly conducted by the medico-legal demonstrator. He directed the SHO, in view of the report, to record the petitioner’s complaint.

Muhammad Shehzad, one of the lawyers involved in the scuffle, said that the ASI had not been beaten up. They had merely had a heated argument, he said, over a trivial matter.

Asked how the policeman’s uniform had gotten torn if there had been no physical fight, Shehzad denied that the uniform had been torn during the exchange.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2012.