Prashant Bhushan Beaten Up Inside SC Over Kashmir Remark

Mangalore Today / PTI

New Delhi, Oct 12: Senior Supreme Court lawyer and Team Anna member Prashant Bhushan was today roughed up by a youth claiming to be the activist of an outfit Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena for his remark on holding referendum  in Kahmir. He was immediately caught and handed over to police.
 
The youth  Inder Verma was overpowered by the lawyer’s assistants and handed over to police.

 

His associate Tejinderpal SinghBagga was later arrested, while the third  Vishnu Gupta  fled from the spot. They distributed leaflets on behalf of Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena  outside the Supreme Court Lawyers chambers.
 
Prashant Bhushan was speaking on some issue on camera to a television channel Times Now inside his court chamber, when Inder Verma  barged inside  and began assaulting the senior lawyer.
 
Prashant  Bhushan had supported the demand for referendum in Kashmir while meeting the press in Varanasi last week. He was asked in Varanasi whether in the light of referendum of Jan Lokpal Bill, he supported holding referendum on the status of Kashmir, Prashant Bhushan had replied; " Yes, can be."

 

Later, Tejinderpal Singh Bagga, the president of Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena speaking to India TV over telephone claimed that he and his associates had similarly tried to attack Kashmir separatist leader Syed Shah Gilani and writer Arundhati Roy in the recent past.
 
"We will break the heads of those who will try to break India", he said in a menacing tone.
 
Bagga claimed he ran a blog site by the name of bhagatsinghkrantisena in which he regularly criticised those who supported the Kashmiri separatists.
 
Bagga also claimed that he and his friends had sought a 4 pm appointment with Prashant Bhushan today. 

Asked by India TV, why he resorted to violence, Bagga said, when law doesn’t give punishment, what can a citizen do.  He said he was inspired by the movie Wednesday in which a citizen took law into his hands to take up cudgels against terror.
 
 
Bagga alleged that Prashant Bhushan had supported death sentence for corrupt persons during the Anna Hazare sit-in, but he prevaricated whenever the question of execution of Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab was raised.
 
Senior Team Anna member Kiran Bedi condemned today’s incident saying it was ’shocking and shameful’.
 
Kiran Bedi said, "I’m disturbed.  Since everything is on camera, these people will be in jail for a long time now. It shows the level of intolerance and desperation among some people. This is very said. It makes me angry.  I think justice will be done as everything is on camera."
 
Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal also condemned the incident saying it appeared to be part of some conspiracy.