Lawyers hold city to ransom; intelligence cop assaulted

Walkie-talkie damaged; court proceedings affected

With this, the stir entered day two, with most court proceedings being pushed to the next day, while in some cases, with plaintiffs arguing over their own case.

Lawyers, in some sense, held the city to ransom, when they held up the traffic for over six hours at Ramaswamy circle when they formed a human chain at around 11 am on Tuesday. They insisted that the police commissioner Sunil Agarwal issues order suspending inspector H M Mahadevappa on the spot. MLC Sandesh Nagaraj and MLA Sa Ra Mahesh expressed solidarity with the protestors and took to task the police officers present on the spot, about commissioner staying safe from the protest area.

By afternoon, when commissioner Sunil Agarwal arrived at the spot, the protestors didn’t pay heed and stayed put at their places. He walked up to the protestors and heard them out. The lawyers said they would not budge from the spot unless the inspector in question was suspended. However, when Agarwal said he cannot pass the suspension orders on the spot, before registering a case, drawing up an FIR and conducting an inquiry; the protestors said they will move from the place only after they were shown the FIR copy.

Assaulted

Just as the discussions were on, some lawyers also flew into rage when they spotted an intelligence officer Padmanabh video recording the incidents. They insisted that he stop it. When Padmanabh didn’t pay heed to them and continued with his work, some of the lawyers chased Padmanabh into the bylanes of Kumbarageri and assaulted him, damaging his walkie-talkie and snatched his video camera.

Traffic disrupted

As a result of the stir, traffic movement was disrupted on busy Ramaswamy circle between 11 am and 5 pm. Students and people who had to use the route to get to various educational institutions and other parts of the town, were left with no choice but to take a detour and find other ways to commute.

Lawyers finally ended their protest at around 5.30 pm, by giving a deadline to register FIR before 10 am on Wednesday.