NEW DELHI: A day after arrested JNUSU Kanhaiya Kumar and journalists were attacked by unruly lawyers inside Patiala House Court, Delhi Police — which had remained a mute spectator — in its report to the Union Home Ministry on Thursday said they could not dare confront the lawyers because of past experience, and therefore “consciously allowed collateral damage”.
The report goes on to say that mediapersons were attacked because they were recording video and taking photographs of the agitating lawyers.
Justifying the decision to do nothing when lawyers unleashed violence on the court premises, the report accessed by Express says: “Past experiences in 1980, Jaipur, Chennai, Allahabad etc have clearly shown that police have always been at the receiving end and has been castigated for either excessive use of force or for not exercising enough restraint in cases of tackling lawyers on court premises.”
The police further pointed put that the prescribed measures of crowd dispersal, including the use of tear gas, water cannons and lathi charge to disperse the crowd could not have been used at the court, as it was congested and could have possibly led to a stampede, and also affected the functioning of the courts.
However, police said they held meetings with the Bar Association, which has assured them of help to maintain order in court.
As for reports of journalists and Kanhaiya Kumar being thrashed, the police denied it, and said, “The police prevented escalation of violence by closing the gates.”