[Assam] To defend Daimary or not? Question splits Assam lawyers - The Hindu

[Ram Sarangapani]

This from The Hindu. It is surprising that as an organization, the Lawyers
Assoc. went on record not to represent a client.
This is like a doctor's association not willing to treat someone because
they don't like him. Lawyers, like doctors, have a responsibility to the
client/patient first.
I guess those things don't matter much these days.
.
While it is understandable that lawyers (individually) do not want to
represent Daimary (as they were the targets of the bombing),
it looks like they had no qualms in representing the ULFA responsible for
killing children in Dhemaji, nor of its 30 years of murderous past.

Here are some quotes from the news item (The Hindu) that capture the general
feelings of people.

*Victims of terror attacks are also asking why lawyers have now resolved not
to defend Daimary while openly appearing on behalf of other rebel leaders
belonging to groups like ULFA. *

* “Let the lawyers unanimously resolve not to plead on behalf of any
arrested militant as terrorists have no religion or language. It hurts when
you find the same lawyers appearing on behalf of ULFA leaders,” said Runima
Das, a mother who lost her school going daughter in an Independence Day
parade blast in Dhemaji in eastern Assam in 2005.
*

*A battery of high profile lawyers are defending arrested ULFA leaders like
chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and five other top rebels now in jail. *
___________________________________________


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  [image: Ranjan Daimary, Chairman of the anti-talk faction of the National
Democratic Front of Boroland being taken to a court in Guwahati. File photo:
AP.]
 Ranjan Daimary, Chairman of the anti-talk faction of the National
Democratic Front of Boroland being taken to a court in Guwahati. File photo:
AP.

Assam’s legal fraternity is divided over defending outlawed National
Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) chief Ranjan Daimary after the state’s
apex lawyer’s body sent out an appeal asking colleagues not to plead for the
mastermind of the October 2008 serial bombings.

The All-Assam Lawyers Association had resolved a day after the October 30
serial explosions that none of the advocates would provide legal assistance
to any of the accused — a stand that has now become the centre of a blazing
controversy after the arrest of the NDFB chief last week.

“We cannot impose the decision but we are appealing to all our colleagues
against pleading on behalf of Ranjan Daimary as the judiciary was targeted
with a powerful explosion killing eight people at the chief judicial
magistrate’s court on October 30,” working president of the association
Rohini Das, told IANS.

Nine serial explosions rocked Assam on October 30, 2008 — three each in
Guwahati and Kokrajhar, two on Barpeta Road, and one in Bongaigaon — killing
100 people and wounding about 400.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probed the serial bombings and
named Daimary and 18 other NDFB militants as the main accused.

But the association’s resolve against providing legal assistance to Daimary
has come a cropper. The separatist leader is being represented in court by
three advocates including Sabda Rabha, also a member of the main opposition
Asom Gana Parishad who contested the Kokrajhar parliamentary seat in 2009.

“It would be wrong to say that no advocates came forward to defend Ranjan
Daimary... we were approached by the family and we came to defend him,”
Rabha said.

“My conscience does not allow me to take up Daimary’s case as I saw many of
my colleagues killed in the blast,” countered well known lawyer Nekibur
Zaman.

Mr. Zaman has pleaded the cases of several militant leaders of the outlawed
United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in the past.

Victims of terror attacks are also asking why lawyers have now resolved not
to defend Daimary while openly appearing on behalf of other rebel leaders
belonging to groups like ULFA.

“Let the lawyers unanimously resolve not to plead on behalf of any arrested
militant as terrorists have no religion or language. It hurts when you find
the same lawyers appearing on behalf of ULFA leaders,” said Runima Das, a
mother who lost her school going daughter in an Independence Day parade
blast in Dhemaji in eastern Assam in 2005.

The explosion, later owned up by the ULFA, killed 14 people, most of them
children.

“I am hurt and ashamed with colleagues of my brother who was a lawyer and
killed in the court blast appearing on behalf of Daimary,” said distraught
college lecturer Pranjit Bhuyan.

A battery of high profile lawyers are defending arrested ULFA leaders like
chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and five other top rebels now in jail.