PATNA: Lawyers all over Jharkhand on Friday boycotted the courts protesting against murder of Dhanbad District Judge, Uttam Anand on Wednesday morning. Lawyers are also protesting against the murder of their colleague on July 26, Manoj Kumar Jha at Tamar in Ranchi district.
Family members of the deceased additional district and session Judge on Friday demanded a CBI investigation into the "murder" as they alleged the police was not moving in the right direction. They claimed Dhanbad police has arrested "benami" people to save the real culprits. Sadanand Prasad, himself an advocate at Hazaribagh district court and father of Uttam, said, "Uttam had been holding trial of severals sensitive cases which were on the last stages of hearing and according to the sections involved in the cases, the accused could have been awarded either death sentence or life imprisonment". He claimed his son had rejected bail applications of many gangsters. The murder was well planned, he alleged.
Suman Sambhu, younger brother of Uttam, who is also staying at Hazaribagh claimed, "Uttam told me he had received threatening calls. High Court was also informed about the threat. He was given security during his posting at Daltonganj, where too he had awarded death sentence two gangsters. His murder is definitely related to some sensitive case he was hearing". Sambhu too, demanded the chief justice of Jharkhand to hand over investigation to the CBI. "He apprehended that crucial evidences were being destroyed. He was hearing many important cases", Suman said.
Suman said he too was hit by an auto recently when he had gone to a shop. "I was hurt", he said and claimed conspirators were behind the murder of his brother too.
Chitesh Kumar Mishra, a senior lawyer of Palamu Bar Assocition today told Free Press Journal over phone from Daltonganj, "Uttam Anand was a fearless and honest judge at Palamu too. He had convicted several notorious criminals as ADJ".
Uttam's family members claimed Judge was eliminated under a well planned conspiracy. Uttam's wife has filed an FIR at Dhanbad alleging murder of her husband.
Meanwhile, the auto driver, Lakhan Verma and his accomplice, Rahul Verma, who were arrested yesterday have been remanded to five days police remand by the Chief Judicial Magistrate. They were produced before the media by the Senior SP, Sanjiv Kumar. Lakhan claimed he had consumed country liquor before hitting the judge with the stolen auto.
