The Hindu : Front Page : Delhi lawyer stabbed outside court

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 15, 2007
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Delhi lawyer stabbed outside court

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: A young lawyer was brutally stabbed by a group of unidentified men and robbed of several thousand rupees in cash and a mobile phone in broad daylight right outside the high-security Patiala House courts complex here on Tuesday.

Thirty-one-year-old Sandeep Kumar Arya, who practises at the Central Administrative Tribunal, had come to the courts in connection with a case. He was apparently contacted on his mobile phone by an anonymous caller and asked to come out of the court premises. When he came out, half-a-dozen men surrounded him and started arguing with him. Suddenly one of them stabbed him twice in the stomach and once on the shoulder, the police said, adding that the assailants then vanished from the scene.

Surprisingly the police have so far not come across any eyewitness to the high drama in the heart of the Capital.

“I was standing outside my chamber chatting with fellow lawyers when Sandeep Kumar came rushing towards us. He was bleeding profusely. He told us that he had been attacked by a group of men outside Gate No. 6 and robbed of his mobile phone and Rs. 15,000 in cash. He then fainted and I took him to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in my car,” said New Delhi Bar Association secretary Jagdeep Vats.

The police said prima facie it appeared to be a case of personal enmity and the assailants were probably known to the lawyer and hailed from his native village in Uttar Pradesh.

“It is learnt that the lawyer had a dispute over distribution of water in his village and he had taken legal recourse to settle it. This seems to have provoked the attack. The exact reason would be known only after the victim’s statement is recorded,” said a police officer.

Attributing the incident to inadequate security near the court premises, Mr. Vats said: “It is indeed shameful that a lawyer is brutally stabbed and robbed in broad daylight just outside the court premises. We have asked the police several times to increase security around the courts, but to no avail.”

Meanwhile, Sandeep Kumar’s condition was stated to be stable.

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