28 Injured In Police-lawyers Clash In Muzaffarabad

A clash between lawyers and police here on Friday left 28 injured, besides causing road blockade and shutting down of courts for hours amid tear gas shelling

MUZAFFARABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Feb, 2020 ) :A clash between lawyers and police here on Friday left 28 injured, besides causing road blockade and shutting down of courts for hours amid tear gas shelling.

According to Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Yaseen Baig, stopping a motorcyclist with a lawyer pillion rider by a traffic cop for violation of wrong way caused the clash.

The SSP told APP that besides abusing the traffic policeman, the lawyer started him beating. The 15 emergency police personnel came to his rescue, who took the both in their custody. Some 50 lawyers rushed to the 15 office and tried to break in. Senior police officers also reached there and after negotiations handed over the held lawyer to his colleagues, who, however, forcibly took a police official with them into the bar office, where they started him beating, Baig claimed On receiving the information, the police rushed to the District Courts Complex and started tear-gas shelling and batten charging the lawyers to get their colleague freed.

In the ensuing clash, 16 policemen and 12 lawyers were injured.

Former president of Central Bar Association Raja Aftab claimed that many people, including women lawyers and judges fell unconscious due to tear-gas shelling inside the courts building.

SSP Baig said the Azad Jammu and Kashmir government had ordered a judicial inquiry into the incident, which would be conducted by the District and Sessions Judge Muzaffarabad. If any police official found guilty of doing something wrong, he would face disciplinary action under the rule, he added.