Lawyer shot dead in Mau, working of courts paralysed

VARANASI: Afzal Ali (42), a lawyer in the Mau district court, was shot dead by two motorcycle-borne miscreants near the residence of tehsildar on Tuesday. Ali’s brother has registered an FIR against a lawyer in this connection. Angered by the incident, the lawyers staged a massive demonstration on the district court premises with the body of Ali.
According to reports, Ali, a native of Hatthi Madari locality under City Kotwali police station, was sitting at his table in the district court premises when two motorcycle-borne youths reached the spot.They requested Ali to go to Tehsil Sadar for the hearing of their case. Ali joined them on their motorcycle. However, they took Ali about 20 yards away from the Tehsildar’s residence and shot him in the head.
Ali died on the spot and the killers fled from the scene.
The news of the incident spread like wildfire and hundreds of lawyers reached the incident site. On seeing Ali’s body, the lawyers went on a rampage. They returned tot eh district court with Ali’s body and staged a massive demonstration. As they boycotted work, functioning in all the courts was paralysed.
On receiving information, Mau district magistrate Bhupendra S Chawdhary and SP Yogendra Singh, who had gone to Azamgarh to attend chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s programme, rushed to the district court.
The DM assured the lawyers that he would try his best to arrange financial assistance for the kin of the deceased lawyer from the CM Relief Fund and all efforts would be made to nab the killers at the earliest. On getting these assurances, the lawyers called off their stir after three and half hours and handed over the body to the police for postmortem examination.
Ali’s brother Shaukat Ali lodged a named FIR against Aslam alias Nanhe Khan for hatching the conspiracy of this murder. Aslam is also a lawyer by profession but due to involvement in a murder case, he is presently lodged in jail. Shaukat alleged that Aslam had a monetary dispute with Ali as his brother was contesting the murder case in which Aslam is an accused.