Re: Naeem Bukhari and the fate of pro govt lawyers
Lawyers had turned into a lynching mob. They did not act like lawyers but frenzied killers. I learnt quickly how blacks in America must have felt when the Klu Klux Klan lynched them.
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=69975
**Assault on a lawyer **
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Naeem Bokhari
I have read Nasim Zehra’s article in your newspaper under the caption “Thrashing Naeem Bokhari: ugly and vulgar”. As a target of the Rawalpindi Bar Lawyers’ fury and practical expression of their judicial activism, I thank Nasim Zehra for her column. However, to set the record straight, the facts are stated as follows. The general secretary of the Rawalpindi Bar and a few others addressed the court while I was waiting at the rostrum for the opposing counsel. The first objection was that the Punjab Bar Council had cancelled my licence and I was therefore not entitled to argue. The judge was given a copy of the order dated 13.3.2007 in WP No. 2351 / 2007 by a judge of the Lahore High Court at its principal seat suspending that resolution. This order was rejected by the secretary of the Rawalpindi Bar as having been passed by a Shia judge, who according to another lawyer was a tout. By this time, a larger crowed of young lawyers had collected both inside the courtroom and outside. Any person considered to be a friend of the president of Pakistan was declared to be a traitor. Abuses against the president and of course me, became more explicit. The additional district judge asked me to sit in the retiring room, whereupon he too was called a tout, corrupt and a pimp. Some of the lawyers were keen to lift me physically, undress me (‘nanga karo’) and then thrash me. A beating with my clothes on was not adequate for them. Contrary to the report in the press, no senior lawyer restrained them at any point in time. The additional district judge wanted me to leave by the back door, but a group of lawyers gathered outside that door blocking the exit while continuing to hurl abuses. Probably the naib qasid called the police. The SHO of the area arrived with a few police constables. A little later, two ASPs and thereafter the SSP arrived. The additional district judge also announced that he was not marking my presence nor was I going to argue the case. But this did not satisfy the mob of lawyers. They wanted my physical custody.
It was suggested that I should apologise. I wanted to know for what. My letter was a matter for which, I was and am answerable to the court, not to any mob. Another office-bearer of the Bar Association insisted that I should not be allowed to sit in the chambers of the judge. Thereupon I came out and sat in the courtroom. An advocate forcibly pushed me out of the chair and thereafter I was attacked inside the courtroom by several lawyers, most of whom I can identify by face. I was forcibly pushed out of the courtroom and hit on the head again and again. At some point, a bullet was fired. This parted the crowd and the SSP wrapped his arms around me and took me to the road to sit in a police van. In the police van, we were showered with bricks, stones, hot channas, spits and a constant barrage of abuses. My associate Yousaf Anjum was also severely beaten. My coat was taken away. My shirt, which was torn along with my trousers were covered in oil and hot channas. The SSP also received an injury on his forehead, as well as many blows. To the police, I owe my life. There were no ISI men in lawyers’ uniform. Lawyers had turned into a lynching mob. They did not act like lawyers but frenzied killers. I learnt quickly how blacks in America must have felt when the Klu Klux Klan lynched them.
The SHO Civil Lines, Rawalpindi, lent me a shirt and trousers. I was desperate to inform my wife that I was alive, knowing that TV channels would soon be informing their viewers of the incident. I had lumps all over my head, but except for the first two nights, when I had difficulty in putting my head on the pillow, there was no life-threatening injury. I have no doubt in my mind that had the Pindi Bar lawyers succeeded in carrying me to the Bar Room, they would not only have stripped me, but caused fatal injuries. One female lawyer was as vocal as her male colleagues in wanting me beaten again and again. But for her short height, she would have landed blows on my head also. A former secretary of the Rawalpindi Bar when asked the reason for the anger of the lawyers, angrily retorted that did I not know what I had done. Another lawyer told me that since I was in their control, I would be dealt with in a way so as to be a lesson to others. Nasim Zehra writes that it was ugly and vulgar. But should we be surprised? We are a society, where a person is stoned to death because of an alleged, not proved, behurmati of the Holy Quran, where a man and a woman are tied to a tree and stoned to death on suspicion of having illicit relations, where students break cars on New Year’s eve because they consider celebration of the New Year un-Islamic, where a cinema is burnt and property destroyed because a religious leader has been killed in Islamabad, where baton-wielding burqa-clad women kidnap foreigners, where even life in the capital is brought to a halt by gun-toting militants, where innocent people die on May 12 in Karachi, because both sides are adamant on showing street-power, where a judge is told to his face that he does not have a cause list but a rate list, where court decisions are predicted in advance and the court is threatened that a contrary result would not be accepted. Thrashing me pales into insignificance. Given a chance, we can prove to anybody that we are a vulgar and ugly people. Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan has co-authored a readable booklet with Lord Mehgnad Desai called 'Why India is a democracy? Why Pakistan is not a democracy?". The title of the book is slightly out of sync. It could have been “Why Pakistan cannot be a democracy”. The ballot or vote is only one element in democracy (very important though). All other factors and elements needed for democracy are conspicuous by their absence in the land of the pure. Mr Jehangir A Jhoja, advocate, who has been President of Lahore High Court Bar was beaten. Arif Chaudhry, advocate Supreme Court was beaten inside the premises of the Supreme Court. Senator Dr Khalid Ranjha has been assaulted. Lawyers beat journalists in Karachi. Now it was my turn. Who will be next? What happened that day at Rawalpindi district court, because of the wrath of the lawyers, can happen to anybody. Deterioration and degeneration of conduct in public is all too apparent. No elections can cure this ailment. My refusal to lodge an FIR was not because of any compassion for those who assaulted me, but because I have no faith that the court, which was not able to protect me inside the courtroom, would be able to ensure my safety to and from the court. The learned additional judge did not even consider it appropriate to forward a complaint of contempt to the High Court. Suo motu action in respect of the author of an open letter is asking for too much. I have received many, many calls even from people I do not know. I thank them and I thank Nasim Zehra.
Postscript: My coat hangs in Rawalpindi’s district bar; but for the police, it would have been my scalp.
The writer is an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
