Thursday's attack on the main accused in the Nithari case is disturbing for many reasons. Those attacking Moninder Singh Pandher in the Ghaziabad courthouse were mainly lawyers, people specifically trained to secure justice by invoking specific laws and constitutional sections. Present, too, at the site were a hundred police personnel, specifically entrusted with keeping order in this highly charged case. Away, in that village of missing children, there was quietly expressed support for the attack. And, ironically, farther away was President A.PJ. Abdul Kalam speaking of recent incidents that have scarred “all of us”.The point is not just whether the lawyers’ action was premeditated or not — and thereby whether the police failed in gathering intelligence. The lawyers’ action once again indicates their increasingly illiberal inclinations. Earlier, just to take one example, the Kashmir Bar Association had not allowed its members to defend the accused in a sex scandal case. Of course these are terrible crimes that people like Pandher have been accused of. But a big purpose of a legal trial is to bring the majesty of the statute book to bear upon a case in court, so that not only are the guilty booked, but the rule of law is reiterated. In Ghaziabad and J&K, lawyers are clearly hinting at their impatience with the rule of law.The worry for the people of Nithari and elsewhere who may have cheered the attack is different. The president, in his address to the nation on Republic Day, captured the problem. The Noida incident has left far too many scars. There is the crime itself, and there is also — very importantly — the amount of time that passed and the number of incidents that piled up before the police took any semblance of action. And before it became a story. The incidents at Nithari have touched all those who have heard of them. But to heal those scars, as the president said, exemplary punishment must be attained for the guilty. And exemplary punishment, in a modern democracy, is only to be found in a court of law.
