He was greeted by a crowd shouting “Go Back,” “Traitor” and “Mercenary” as he landed at the Raipur airport late on Sunday night. But when he arrived at the Chhattisgarh High Court on Monday morning, the country's foremost criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani turned up to defend rights activist Binayak Sen.
In the run-up to the latest hearing in the high-profile case, student members of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and assorted members of the public held brief anti-Binayak Sen protests that were quickly dispersed by the police.
“The leader of the mob appears to be a practising lawyer of this court,” said Mr. Jethmalani in his preliminary remarks in his defence of Dr. Sen.
“I don't feel very welcome here. They [lawyers] haven't even asked me to visit the bar room.”
In the morning, the police threw a thick blanket of security around the High Court here.
Policemen barricaded the gates even as a police videographer captured footage of all those who arrived for the hearing.
Senior officers consulted handwritten lists circulated by the intelligence department to ensure that no one entered the courtroom under false identities.
This correspondent, for instance, was described as ‘journalist (bearded)' in an intelligence handout.
A group of observers from the European Union shielded their eyes from the blazing sun as policemen and court officers struggled to get them passes to attend the hearing.
Television cameras hovered close by as local lawyers questioned the propriety of sending a team of international observers to witness a trial. “We never ask to observe hearings abroad,” said a lawyer who wished to remain unnamed.
Within court number 6's pinewood panelled walls, a phalanx of lawyers hurried to get seats a full hour before the hearing began; family members of the accused and the press squeezed into the visitors' gallery before spilling out into the aisles.
