NEW DELHI, April 25: Within hours of the independent member of the Gujarat state Assembly Jignesh Mevani was granted bail by the district court in Kokrajhar in Assam, he was re-arrested by the police of the neighouring district of Barpeta on a different charge and sent back to the jail on Monday.
Mevani, a staunch critic of the prime minister Narendra Modi, who was arrested by the Assam police from Palanpur in Gujarat on Thursday for his tweets against Modi, was produced in the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court in the Kokrajhar district on Monday and was granted bail but had to return to jail as the Barpeta police placed him under arrest in a new case.
“The Barpeta police rearrested him following the bail order,” said Angshuman Bora, Mevani’s counsel, adding that the sections he was booked under (294, 354, 353 and 323 of the Indian Penal Code) suggested that Mevani had “misbehaved/assaulted” police officials while in custody.
Among others, these sections are related to “assault or use of criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty” (Section 353) and “assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty” (Section 354).
“This is a completely false and fabricated case,” said Bora, adding that Mevani would be produced in the Barpeta Chief Judicial Magistrate court on Tuesday. “We will now move for bail there,” he said.
Mevani, who is supported by the Congress, was first arrested on Thursday from Gujarat’s Palanpur by a team of Assam police after a local BJP leader from Assam’s Kokrajhar filed a complaint against him. Mevani called his arrest “vendetta politics by the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office).” “It is a conspiracy by the BJP and the RSS. They did this to tarnish my image. They have been doing this systematically. They did it to Rohit Vemula, they did it to Chandrasekhar Azad, now they are targeting me,” Mevani said.
The 41-year-old has been charged with criminal conspiracy, offence related to place of worship, outraging religious feelings, and provocation that might lead to breach of peace. In his complaint, BJP leader Arup Kumar Dey has alleged that Mevani’s tweets are “likely to incite a section of the masses belonging to a certain community.” Dey said Mevani has been “trying to divide people by his posts and always speaks negatively about Prime Minister Modi”.
“We are lucky to have Modi ji as our Prime Minister and Mevani is trying to link his name with the recent (incidents of) violence. Is Prime Minister Modi responsible for that? He says Godse is Prime Minister Modi’s God, what proof does he have?” he said. The Congress has alleged that the arrest -within 24 hours of the complaint — was made with an eye to the coming assembly elections in Gujarat, a state the BJP has been ruling since 1995.
“Modi ji, you can try to crush dissent by abusing the state machinery. But you can never imprison the truth,” Congress’s Rahul Gandhi tweeted. Mevani, who represents Vadgam seat in Banaskantha district, had said he would fight the next elections as a Congress candidate.
Bora added Barpeta police officials arrived with a warrant, but did not divulge further details. “We do not know the context of his re-arrest yet, we just know the sections because it was mentioned in the warrant,” he said. The case has been registered in the Barpeta Road police station and its officer-in-charge said that he could not comment on the issue.
(Manas Dasgupta)