Thiruvananthapuram: The unruly scenes witnessed on court premises in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday and Thursday have prompted India’s apex court to send a fact-finding mission to the state.

The incidents were triggered after lawyers were enraged over media coverage of the arrest of advocate and counsellor appearing for the state Dhanesh Mathew Manjooran in a case of alleged molestation of a woman in Kochi.

Scores of lawyers abused and assaulted media persons in Kochi on Wednesday evening and worse scenes played out on Vanchiyoor court premises in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday. In both places, lawyers forcibly sealed the doors of the media rooms on the court premises.

In Thiruvannathapuram, lawyers also resorted to stone-throwing, and several liquor bottles were also hurled at the media fraternity, injuring half a dozen journalists and one court official. They also stuck a poster saying, ‘No entry for fourth gender’, on the windows of the media room and on the vehicles of media persons.

Taking cognisance of the developments, justice Kurian Joseph of the Supreme Court of India has deputed two high court justices — P.N. Ravindran and P.R. Ramachandran — to probe the developments and submit a report.

Meanwhile, senior lawyer Sangeetha Lakshmana admonished her lawyer colleagues, writing on social media that the brawl had its roots in lawyers wanting to save their colleague who was accused of molesting a woman. “That is the root cause, the origin,” she wrote.

Laskhmana went on to say, “If this is the objective of a lawyers’ association and its style of operation, I leave it to your IQ to guess, imagine, predict and predicate how things will be in future tense.”

The threat of lawyers running riot for a third day was so strong on Friday that police submitted to a court in Kollam that they could not present ‘Adu’ Antony, the convict in the case of murdering a civil police officer, Manian Pillai, owing to security reasons.

The Kollam sessions court, which had found Antony guilty in the case, has therefore postponed the verdict in the case to July 27. Police intelligence had feared that Antony might attempt to escape if there was another scuffle on court premises by lawyers.

Following the attacks on media persons, the lawyers’ association also decided to suspend some lawyers who decided not to defend the assault carried out by lawyers against journalists. Lawyers facing such actions include Sebastian Paul, C.P. Udayabhanu and Shivan Madathil.

In Thrissur, lawyers burned newspapers as a mark of support for their colleagues who clashed with media persons in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram.