Ram Jethmalani condemns attack on lawyer's house

NEW DELHI: Condemning the attack on the house of Mahesh Deshmukh, the lawyer who wanted to take up the case of Mumbai terror accused Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman, allegedly by Shiv Sena activists, noted advocate and MP Ram Jethmalani
said on Tuesday that it was nothing but hooliganism.
      
"Everyone is entitled a lawyer to defend himself or herself as this fundamental right is enshrined in our Constitution. So attacking a lawyer for this is hooliganism and people are also terrorists who are attacking the spiritual foundation of our republic," Jethmalani said here.
      
About 100 Sena activists, armed with canes, stormed the Amravati residence of Deshmukh and ransacked it, smashing telephone, chairs and tables and hurling books and documents out.
      
"Even thousand lawyers cannot save him. Either he has to get a death sentence or life imprisonment," he said.
       
"He is a young man who has been indoctrinated. Had I been the judge I would not have ordered to hang him. I would have given him life imprisonment. So that he realises that his fate is in the hell of Indian jails and not in the paradise as the Mullahs might have convinced him," Jethmalani said.
      
He also criticised the statement of eminent lawyer Harish Salve who had on Monday termed Iman as a prisoner of war (POW).
      
"Has he (Harish) gone out of his mind? The POW status will give him all comforts in jail," he said.
      
"The case will not last for more than 10 minutes in the court. Give him as many lawyers he wants. That will not make any difference," he said.