The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has condemned the brutal killing of a lawyer couple in Telangana on February 17 and urged Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao to ensure the arrest of assailants at the earliest.

G Vaman Rao and PV Nagamani were pulled out of their vehicle on a busy highway in Telangana Wednesday afternoon and hacked to death.

''The Supreme Court Bar Association condemns the gruesome brutal killing of advocates Shri Gattu Vaman Rao and his wife PV Nagamani in broad daylight and in public view in Telangana. The planned killings of these advocates who took up matters in the public interest have shaken the entire legal fraternity and left the community numbed...,''

SC Bar Association Acting Secretary Rohit Pandey said in a statement. The bar body said such ''macabre incidents'' do not augur well for a free and independent democracy where the rule of law guarantees the right to profess a profession without fear or favor.

''We call upon the Chief Minister of Telangana and the Police Commissioner to probe into the incident and arrest the accused at the earliest,'' the statement said.

It was on Wednesday, 17 February, that the lawyer couple was stabbed to death by unidentified assailants in broad daylight in Peddapalli district. The assailants reportedly dragged the couple out of their car and stabbed them to death with sickles and knives around 2.30 pm on Wednesday, police said.

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