New Delhi (PTI): Over 10,000 lawyers, who came from different parts of the country, on Wednesday took out a march in the Capital to protest against CrPC amendments that allow the police not to arrest accused in offences punishable with seven-year jail term.

The lawyers marched from Patiala House district courts to Parliament Street here leading to traffic jams in central Delhi. Earlier in the day, lawyers stayed away from courts for second consecutive day paralysing work and putting litigants and witnesses to inconvenience. Till now, they have struck work in district courts on six occasions in the last one and half months.

"Representatives from all the bar associations of the country came to participate in the massive peace march against the anti-people and anti-social amendments in the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC)," Mahesh Sharma, chairman of the Co-ordination Committee All Bar Associations of Delhi, said.

The call for the nationwide strike of lawyers was given last month following a decision in a meeting of different bar associations here, he said, claiming that Wednesday's strike and the march were successful.

Bar leaders from areas as far as Tamil Nadu, Agartala and Bihar had come to support our cause, said Santosh Mishra, president of New Delhi Bar Association, adding that protests will continue till the amendment is scrapped