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

Fri May 7 15:40:14 PDT 2010

The following editorial is from The Sentinel.I am in total agreement
with it. We must certainly denounce all forms of terrorism. But
individuals caught for committing acts of terror have to be subjected
to the due process of law.
These lawyers are on the verge of dismantling the very spirit of our
democracy that we should have been striving to protect.One wonders,
which law schools have trained the members of the Assam Bar Council,
when all of them refuse to represent Ranjan Daimary. What is wrong
with the those lawyers that they think an accused should be denied
legal rights?
KJD

 Why No Aid to Daimary?

The decision of the All Assam Lawyer’s Association (AALA) not to
provide legal assistance to arrested National Democratic Front of
Boroland (NDFB) chief Ranjan Daimary has not gone down well with the
Bodo community of Assam; so much so that several Bodo organizations
have decried the decision and subsequent developments as a
manifestation of a deep racial prejudice of the dominant
Assamese-speaking community against the Bodos. That such an impression
has been created in the wake of the arrest of Daimary and the alleged
treatment meted out to him in sharp contrast to the one meted out to
top ULFA leaders in jail, is indeed unfortunate — at a time when
social and ethnic differences will only compound the State’s many
woes. Assam cannot afford such rifts at this point of time. The point
being raised by organizations like the United People’s Federation of
Assam (UPFA), which is a conglomerate of over 40 indigenous and tribal
bodies, Bodo Citizens’ Forum (BCF) and Bodo Women Justice Forum (BWJF)
is absolutely valid: that if ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and other
arrested leaders of the outfit can get legal aid, why not Daimary?
This newspaper would put that logic in a slightly different way: if
the chairman of a terrorist organization has no dearth of lawyers to
defend him after his arrest, why should the chairman of another
similar terrorist organization not get legal aid under similar
circumstances? By virtue of being the president of a terror outfit,
Rajkhowa is patently a terror master; likewise, Daimary too is. And if
Rajkhowa must be defended in the court of law because he has the right
to be defended, there cannot be a separate — and discriminatory —
regime applicable to Daimary just because there was a blast, ordered
allegedly by him, at the CJM court in Guwahati on October 30, 2008 in
which seven lawyers were killed and as if the terrorism perpetrated on
innocent men, women and children by the ULFA entails a different legal
take! This is unjust — and unbecoming of a civilized society. The
point is simple:  either defend all or none, when it comes to
defending terror leaders of the likes of Rajkhowa and Daimary. There
cannot be a bizarre double standard.
However, the lawyer’s association does not agree. They are saying that
they had decided not to defend any of the accused in the CJM court
blast because seven of their colleagues were blown away right in front
of their eyes, that the decision stemmed from a sense of deep
solidarity and hurt so close, and that  when the decision was made no
one knew who would be the accused. Fine, but what is being forgotten
is a very disturbing shade of selfishness that such decisions bring to
the fore, when the faculty of reason should have been the main driving
force. One is not blaming the lawyers in question for their decision
not to defend a terror guru; one is blaming them because it is the
same lawyers who are zealously trying to prove the ‘innocence’ of
other terror preachers and practitioners — as if, to put it bluntly,
because no lawyer has been killed in the latter’s acts of terror, and
as long as others (read ‘‘outside of the lawyers’ fraternity’’) are
killed, it is okay to defend the accused, however criminal! Going by
what we have just said, one would attack the lawyers thus: ‘‘If
tomorrow I am killed by a terrorist and the terrorist is produced
before the court of law, you will defend him because I am not from
your fraternity and you will argue that you must defend him because
the legal process demands that. In that situation there is no sense of
loss because the loss is not of your fraternity! How does your
conscience allow you to defend the top brass of an outfit, ULFA, that
did not spare even innocent schoolchildren on August 15, 2004 in
Dhemaji? Or does conscience matter only when it comes to your own
loss?’’
That is precisely the point. It is indeed unfortunate that the lawyers
opposed to the defence of Daimary have missed that point. And the
damage has been such a huge tragedy: the Bodos, one of the most
indigenous people in this part of the world, are feeling alienated,
betrayed, discriminated against. This cannot be allowed to happen

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 8:54 AM, Ram Sarangapani <assamrs at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
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