Jammu, Apr 10: Police has filed FIR against a group of lawyers for protesting and attempting to prevent the Crime Branch officials from performing their duty of filing charge-sheet against eight persons in the rape-and-murder of a minor girl.
“An FIR has been lodged against a group of lawyers who held protests and tried to prevent the Crime Branch officials from performing their duty,” a senior police official said.
He said that the lawyers have not been identified so far and their identification is part of the investigation.
Accompanied by the accused yesterday, a team of Crime Branch faced stiff resistance from the members of the Kathua Bar Association, who chanted slogans “go back crime branch” during filing of the charge-sheet and held protests.
The Kathua Bar Association claimed that the Crime Branch was compelled to leave the premises without filing the charge-sheet.
“All the members of the Bar have strongly agitated against the presentation of challan (charge-sheet) by the Crime Branch in the Rassana case,” president of the Kathua Bar Association, Kirty Bhushan Mahajan, said in a statement.
“The agitation of the Bar proved successful and the Crime Branch was compelled to go back and the challan could not be presented in the court of chief judicial magistrate Kathua,” he claimed.
He said the Bar is already on strike against the investigation of the case by the Crime Branch and strongly favours a CBI inquiry into the incident.
“All the Bar members strongly condemned the conduct of the Crime Branch in dealing the issue. The state government has failed to deal the issue or understand the sentiments of the people. The agitation of the Bar shall continue and it has unanimously decided to keep the work under suspension till April 12,” Mahajan said.
Meanwhile, targeting the government over remarks made by two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ministers in support of accused in Kathua rape-and-murder case, opposition National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Tuesday said mob was emboldened by their words.
Omar’s response came in reaction to police filing FIR against the Kathua-based lawyers who obstructed the Crime Branch officials while filing charge-sheet against the accused in the case yesterday.
Lauding police action, Omar said two BJP ministers are responsible for instigating mob, who later masqueraded as lawyers obstructing officials to file challan.
While appreciating action by @JmuKmrPolice against the Kathua mob masquerading as lawyers let’s not forget the mob were emboldened by the actions/words of two BJP ministers in @MehboobaMufti’s cabinet. What about action against them?
— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) April 10, 2018
“While appreciating action by @JmuKmrPolice against the Kathua mob masquerading as lawyers let’s not forget the mob were emboldened by the actions/words of two BJP ministers in @MehboobaMufti’s cabinet. What about action against them?” Omar wrote on twitter.
The two BJP ministers- Chander Prakash Ganga, who holds Industries and Commerce portfolio and Chowhary Lal Singh, who is the minister for Forests and Ecology in the present PDP-led coalition government, had made remarks in favor of the accused in the case, and had also demanded that the case to be shifted to CBI.
