NEW DELHI, April 29: The Congress-supported independent member of the Gujarat State Assembly and Dalit rights activist Jignesh Mevani, arrested by the Assam police twice in two cases since April 20, was granted bail on Friday.
The Barpeta district and sessions court gave him bail on a PR bond of ₹1,000 in the second case of allegedly assaulting and pawing a woman police officer on April 21 after he was brought to Assam from Gujarat’s Palanpur. The first case is related to an “offensive” tweet on Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he had posted on April 18.
“He is likely to be released tomorrow [Saturday] as the formalities in the first case are to yet be completed after he was granted bail by the chief judicial magistrate (CJM) in Kokrajhar,” the MLA’s legal counsel and senior advocate Angshuman Bora said. Kokrajhar is about 80 km west of Barpeta.
An Assam police team arrested Mevani from Gujarat based on an FIR lodged against him by Arup Kumar Dey, a BJP executive member in Assam’s autonomous Bodoland Territorial Council, for the controversial tweet against the Prime Minister.
Soon after he was granted bail by the Kokrajhar CJM court on April 25, the Barpeta police re-arrested him in the case of alleged assault on the lady police constable. According to the FIR lodged on April 21 by the woman police officer, the incident occurred while he was being taken to Kokrajhar by road from the Guwahati airport.
The Barpeta CJM court sent him to five days in police custody on April 27. A fresh application for his bail was filed in the Barpeta district and sessions court the following day.
Mevani accused the BJP government of Assam of doing a “cowardly thing” by using a woman to “frame a case” against him. “I will not bow down (jhukega nahi),” Mevani said. “My arrest was not a simple matter. It must have been done under the instruction of political bosses at the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office),” Mevani added.
“I am still proud of the tweet I did. In the tweet, I basically asked the Prime Minister to maintain peace and harmony as communal clashes happened…As a citizen of India, I have my rights to ask this. As a lawmaker what’s our duty? It is to urge people to maintain peace, so that’s what I did,” Mevani said.
And in the second case, they cooked up a story to frame a case by using a woman. The government is such a coward that it used a woman against me. Such a coward act it is,” the Gujarat MLA said, adding the ruling BJP is doing all this with an eye on the Gujarat election, which will be held later this year.
“This is a conspiracy. This did not go well among Dalits, among people of Gujarat. They are watching it. They (BJP) will pay for it…Both the cases against me are false and frivolous,” Mevani said. “The moment I was picked up in Gujarat, I knew they were planning to trap me in different cases. The targeting of an MLA from Gujarat in Assam was part of a big plot,” Mevani said. “They file cases against anyone who questions them, anyone who speaks for truth…The way the people of Assam and the Congress supported me was of great help,” he said.
(Manas Dasgupta)
