Murder inside courtroom: Allahabad HC summons Uttar Pradesh home secretary, DGP

ALLAHABAD: Taking suo moto cognizance of the attack in a courtroom in Bijnor on Tuesday in which one accused was killed and three others sustained injuries, the Allahabad high court on Wednesday summoned Uttar Pradesh’s Principal Secretary (Home) and DGP before the court on December 20, 2019 to apprise it with a plan to strengthen security of the court premises across the state.
Taking a serious note of the incident, a division bench comprising Justice Sudhir Agarwal and Justice Suneet Kumar observed, "It seems there is a complete failure of law and order inside the court premises in state. The most incompetent police professionals are deployed for security of court premises. Is government serious about courts’ security? Are top officials even aware about these incidents which happened in the recent past in different courts of Uttar Pradesh?"
"Three recent incidents of attacks on undertrials in Muzaffarnagar, on a woman lawyer in Agra and now in Bijnor show that criminals are now so fearless that they are now entering court rooms and killing people," added the bench.
While fixing December 20 as the next date of hearing in this matter, the court told to the additional advocate general, representing the state government that strengthening of courts' security in the state is an issue since 2008 but not much has been done in reality. If the state government cannot provide adequate security in court premises then we will ask the central government to deploy central forces for it, the court observed..
Earlier, in the day, the court took suo moto cognizance of Tuesday’s incident in which three assailants opened fire in a courtroom in Bijnor district and killed a murder accused and injured three others, including two policemen.
It is to recall that Shahnawaz, who was killed in the attack in the court room, was an accused in the murder of property dealer and BSP leader Haji Ehsaan and his nephew Shadab on May 28 in Najibabad.
The police had arrested Danish, Shahnawaz and shooter Abdul Jabbar in connection with the murders. Subsequently, on December 17 afternoon, Shahnawaz was brought from Tihar jail to the CJM’s court for a hearing, where this dreaded incident took place.