Sex racket: J&K lawyers on strike

Srinagar: The Jammu Bar Association went on a strike on Wednesday to condemn a threat issued to a senior lawyer, Sunil Sethi, in Srinagar while representing his brother Anil, who has been arrested in connection with the sex racket in the state.

"The entire bar association today went on strike to protest the threat by some undientified militants to kill our former president Sunil Sethi while he was pleading the case of his brother Anil on June 26," said Abhinav Sharma, the secretary of the body.

Former additional advocate general Anil Sethi is one of the twelve people arrested by the state police and CBI in connection with the sex racket that has rocked the state.

Anil was recently chargesheeted by the CBI.

The bar association in Srinagar has announced that no lawyer will be allowed to represent those arrested or charged in connection with the scandal.

"We are not with the Kashmir bar, which has issued a blanket ban on its lawyers fighting the cases of the sex scam accused," Sharma said adding this is a "sensitive issue".

He ruled out supporting the bar association in Srinagar in its ban as this would "create anarchy, which we do not believe in".

The future course of action of the Jammu Bar Association will be decided at a meeting on Thursday, Sharma said.

Sunil Sethi has also sought security from Chief Justice B A Khan while pleadging the case of his brother in Srinagar.

Sethi said when he was leaving the court premises in Srinagar on June 26 at in his car, two unidentified youth waylaid him near a showroom.

The men, in their late 20s or early 30s, started threatening him, Sunil said.

He claimed one of them "threatened me not to appear in the case as public want all the accused to be hanged. If anybody comes between the accused and the punishment, that obstacle will be removed."

He said he only told the two men that he was "compelled by circumstances to defend his brother".

One of the men then lifted his kurta and showed Sethi a pistol tucked in his salwar, shouting "Agar tumhari zubaan vaise band nahi hui to aise band kar denge (If you dont stop talking, we will use this to stop you)."

Sunil then checked out of the hotel he was staying in at Srinagar and left for Jammu immediately, he said.