For those in court, it was 26/11 redux

NEW DELHI: Just as the judge called out the name ‘Cheenu’, four men barged into the Karkardooma courtroom and opened fire indiscriminately. There were some 35 people present in the room. Stunned by the gunshots, while some of those in attendance tried to flee, others ducked for cover, fearing it to be a Mumbai-style terror attack.
The armed assailants managed to walk up to the sixth floor of the building, exposing a glaring lapse in court security.Some lawyers claimed to have seen the youths roam around freely on the floor till the police arrived with Cheenu.
“Initially, I thought it was a terror attack as the shots sounded like having come from automatic weapons. However, soon we saw a few men with pistols running towards the stairs. It was like a scene from a Bollywood movie,” said Kamal Kumar, who had come to the court for a hearing in another case.
Others considered themselves to be fortunate not to be hit by stray bullets. A few, however, sustained minor injuries during the commotion. “There was a hail of bullets, missing us by a whisker,” said Narbi Dabas, a lawyer.
On the floor, there were some 200 people at the time of the incident. “If it was not for the lawyers, the men would have escaped. This is how lax the security is here,” complained Nadeem Khan, another lawyer. The security personnel present at the court reportedly not equipped with the mandatory hand-held metal detectors.
According to president of the bar association, Mahesh Sharma, more than 4,000 lawyers and 15,000 litigants come to the court daily. However, the entries are manned by only a handful of policemen. “We have requested the police and the government to increase the security, but no action has been taken for the past five years,” he said.