Patna, Oct 21: Condemning the killing of advocate Pramod Kumar Jha, lawyers of the Patna High Court today threatened to launch an agitation if his killers were not arrested soon. An emergency meeting of the coordination committee of three associations of Patna High Court lawyers, comprising about 7,000 members, condemned the gunning down of Jha in the heart of the city yesterday and said the police should immediately arrest the culprits.

The meeting also constituted a three-member lawyers probe team to go into the circumstances that led to the killing of Jha, coordination committee convenor Yogesh Chandra Verma said in a press statement. The committee will submit its report in three days. Based on the recommendations of the probe team, the coordination committee would chalk out its future course of agitation, he said.

The meeting also expressed serious concern over alleged involvement of a lawyer in the kidnapping of a Munger-based school boy and wrote to the Bihar State Bar Council to initiate appropriate action against him. After remaining in the clutches of the kidnappers for nearly a month, five-year-old Ankesh was recovered from a flat in an apartment owned by the lawyer in Patliputra colony last week. The police arrested the lawyer and two others in this connection.

Bureau Report