NEW DELHI: With the police and lawyers slugging it out on Delhi roads for the past four days, it's not just the city residents but also the people associated with these two communities who are caught in a bind.
Amid an unprecedented collapse of the law and order in the national capital, and their protectors themselves claiming victimhood, the people don't know whom to call out for to seek help.
For advocate Dhruv Bhagat, whose father is a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) in the Delhi Police, the dilemma is two-fold. Whom should he support? Policemen, who are seen being beaten up in video after video by lawyers on the loose, or his own fraternity.
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Perhaps it was this quandary that forced Bhagat to write an open letter to the two parties questioning their behaviour on the violence that broke at the Tis Hazari court complex on Saturday and left several people injured and dozens of vehicles damaged.
In his letter, Bhagat also urges the advocates and the police to get back to work to avoid more difficulties to the people and wait for the judicial inquiry report into the incident.
In his letter, Bhagat asks: "Whether the lawyer was justified in parking his car right outside the lock-up, where official cars are supposed to be parked, including lockup buses? Whether the lawyer was justified in justifying to the policemen about parking his car despite the objections raised by the policemen including of security concern?"
The letter also questions the starting of the violence. "Whether the act of the policeman in destroying the chambers of the advocates is justified after the clashes between the two? Whether the policemen were justified in firing pistols, which ultimately hit the lawyer and injured him?" he writes.
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"Whether after the incident the lawyers ganging up and burning government and private vehicles is a justifiable act? Whether the act of the lawyers sealing the entire court premises and harassing litigants, court staff and even judicial officers justified?Whether on the next day of protest advocates brutally assaulting a policeman in open air is act of justification?" he further asks.
"If the answers to all the above questions above are 'No', then let's stop playing the blame game, stop taking law into our own hands and wait for the judicial inquiry report. Let the judicial work carry on and let the litigants not suffer due to the unnecessary ego clashes between the advocate and the police," says Bhagat.