(From top) TV footage shows the assault; Bhushan addresses the media after the attack; Inder Verma, who hit Bhushan. (PTI)

New Delhi, Oct. 12: Three youths suspected to be part of a fringe outfit roughed up lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan in his chamber today for a statement on Kashmir, the assault captured live by a channel that was interviewing the Team Anna member.

No one except the channel’s crew and one member of Bhushan’s staff was around when the youths barged into his usually congested office right outside the Supreme Court a little after 4 in the afternoon when court work had ended for the day.

The busy Bhagwan Das road separates the heavily guarded court complex from the lawyers’ chambers, where anyone can walk in any time.

“He’s otherwise fine. We don’t apprehend any major injuries,” junior advocate Rohit Singh said from RML hospital, where Bhushan, 55, was rushed for an immediate CT scan.

“Sir hit his head when he fell,” Singh said, explaining a swelling in Bhushan’s head.

Recently, Bhushan had reportedly said that if Kashmiris didn’t want to stay in India, they should have the freedom to do so.

He had also agreed with a suggestion that a referendum could be held to determine the wishes of the people there, a view that has many opponents in political parties such as the BJP, which advocates a hard-line stand, to ultra-nationalist fringe bodies.

Advocate Singh said there might have been two or three assailants. “One or two of them escaped in the commotion as soon as we rushed in,” he said.

“Sir was lying on the floor when we went in. We thought he had a fit or something, till we saw a guy hitting him.”

One of the assailants was later arrested and taken to Tilak Marg police station that adjoins the apex court.

TV footage showed the soft-spoken, wiry lawyer being slapped across his face and head, punched and kicked. Bhushan is shown trying to fend off the blows. In the process, he slipped down from his chair and fell on the floor, Singh said.

The youth was shouting that Bhushan had to pay for what he said on Kashmir. He also shouted: “Jai Shri Ram.”

Police were questioning the youth identified as Inder Verma.

“An FIR has been registered under sections 323 (causing voluntary hurt), 452 (trespass) and 120B (criminal conspiracy),” Delhi police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said. “Investigations are still on.”

Initial reports had suggested that he belonged to the Shri Ram Sene, a little-known outfit with ideologies similar to that of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. A mail sent to some reporters also claimed this.

Another outfit, the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena, also claimed responsibility for the assault. A self-styled member of the outfit, Tejinder Pal Bagga, spoke on the phone to some TV channels.

“If you break my country, I will break your face,” he reportedly told a channel and claimed that he fled the scene after raining blows on Bhushan, son of former law minister Shanti Bhushan, also a member of Anna Hazare’s team.

The father-son duo were part of the joint drafting committee on the Lokpal bill and have been pushing for a tough law to check corruption.

The initial reaction of the Sangh, which had been in the past defensive about the Ram Sene, was cautious.

Later, when the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena claimed responsibility, the RSS condemned the act as “reprehensible”.

Spokesperson Ram Madhav said: “It is well known that Kashmir issues (Bhushan’s support for a referendum in Kashmir was the ostensible spur) attract divergent views. However, these should be contested only through democratic means. Resorting to violence is not acceptable.”

A look at the websites of the Ram Sene and the Bhagat Singh Sena showed that, like the RSS, their pet obsessions were also “national integrity”, “Congress’s corruption” and the government’s “failure” to execute Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and 26/11 attacker Ajmal Kasab.

BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said democracy did not “permit this kind of violence” and demanded that the police should look into the “larger ramifications of the act”.

The Congress condemned the “barbaric” attack. “No words are strong enough to condemn the attack,” said spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi.

Home minister P. Chidambaram said he had directed Delhi police commissioner B.K. Gupta to take “appropriate action against the people involved in the attack”.