A man accused in the Soumya Vishwanathan murder case was attacked by a co-accused with a blade in a packed courtroom on Tuesday.

Ajay Kumar, accused in the murder cases of both Vishwanathan and call centre employee Jigisha Ghosh, assaulted co-accused Ajay Sethi while they were being taken out of the courtroom of Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjeev Kumar by policemen.

They had appeared in court along with key accused Ravi Kapoor, when Ajay Kumar slashed Ajay Sethi’s cheek with a blade around 12.30 pm before being overpowered by the security personnel escorting them.

Litigants who had thronged to the court premises to attend cases, panicked and ran for cover, a court staff member said.

Later, the police took the victim to a nearby hospital for a medical check up and registered a case relating to the assault.

The police had recently filed a chargesheet in the Soumya Vishwanathan and Jigisha Ghosh murder cases against five persons - Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Ajay Kumar, Baljit Malik and Ajay Sethi.