Date:09/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/09/stories/2008040959861800.htm

International

Mob of lawyers beats up former Minister in Lahore

Nirupama Subramanian

Movement for reinstatement of judges sacked by Musharraf badly discredited

ISLAMABAD: The lawyers’ movement for the reinstatement of judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf was badly discredited on Tuesday when a mob of lawyers in Lahore attempted to lynch the former Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Sher Afghan Niazi.

Following the ugly incident, Aitzaz Ahsan, the leading light of the movement who steered it from its inception last March, stepped down as president of the Supreme Court Bar Association saying he was “ashamed” and would not lead a “bunch of hooligans” and “miscreants who indulge in despicable actions.”

Dr. Niazi was hit with shoes, punched and kicked by the mob that also tried to prevent police from taking him away in an ambulance. Distressing television footage showed the former Minister, who is in his late 60s, being dragged on one side by policemen into the ambulance while the mob was trying to pull him out.

The ambulance finally drove away with the badly manhandled Mr. Niazi lying gasping on the floor of the vehicle with broken glass from its windows scattered all over him, and Mr. Ahsan standing on its roof begging the crowd with folded hands not to throw stones at it.

The four-hour drama began when Mr. Niazi went to meet his lawyer in an area of Lahore where hundreds of legal practices are located. Word got out that the Minister, who was a vocal supporter of President Pervez Musharraf and an equally loud critic of the former Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhary, was in the vicinity.

Hundreds of lawyers gathered outside the building, preventing him from coming out. Mr. Ahsan alleged there were also many others in the crowd who were not lawyers and who instigated the incident.

When Mr. Ahsan reached the spot, he pleaded with the crowd to allow Mr. Niazi to leave the building unharmed. Some lawyers and police formed a wall to give the former Minister, who is a member of the defeated Pakistan Muslim league (Q), safe passage to a waiting ambulance.

But all hell broke loose when he emerged, escorted by Mr. Ahsan. Television footage showed the mob going beserk. Hands reached out from all around to hit Mr. Niazi, wildly pulling at his clothes and hair.

Mr. Ahsan alleged that people other than lawyers were behind the incident with the aim of sabotaging the movement for the restoration of the judiciary.

But he said the lawyers had to be condemned for allowing themselves to become part of this incident.

A pall of gloom has descended over the legal community that has so far prided itself on conducting a non-violent movement.

Other leaders of the movement also came out strongly against the incident but, like Mr. Ahsan, raised the possibility that some unseen hand was attempting to sabotage the lawyers’ struggle.

Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Shahbaz Sharif,, condemened the incident as a “conspiracy” against the coalition government.

Soon after the Lahore incident, violence was reported from Mianwali, Mr. Niazi’s hometown in the Punjab province, from where he lost the February 18 election.