Gujarat Congress working president Jignesh Mevani was linked to blocking a road in a 2016 protest case. Earlier in May, a Gujarat court had sentenced Mevani and nine others to three months’ imprisonment for holding an ‘Azadi Rally’ without permission in 2017.
Ahmedabad: An Ahmedabad court on Friday sentenced Gujarat Congress working president and MLA Jignesh Mevani and 18 others to six months’ simple imprisonment for “inciting riots and unlawful gathering of crowds” in a 2016 protest case. Sentenced.
The case pertained to the blocking of a road by Mevani and his associates.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate PN Goswami also imposed a fine on Mevani and others, though adjourned their sentence till October 17 for appeal.
Apart from Mevani, other accused are associated with Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch. A case was registered against Jignesh and 19 others at the University police station here in 2016.
The matter was related to road blockade to press for the demand of renaming an under-construction building of the Law Department of Gujarat University after Dr. BR Ambedkar.
An FIR was registered under sections 143 (unlawful assembly) and 147 (rioting) of the Indian Penal Code as well as various sections of the Gujarat Police Act. One of the accused died during the trial of the case.
Prominent Dalit leader Mevani had won the 2017 assembly elections as an independent candidate with the support of the Congress. Later the Congress party made him the working president of its Gujarat unit.
It is noteworthy that earlier in the month of May, a Gujarat court sentenced independent MLA Jignesh Mevani and nine others to three months’ imprisonment for taking out ‘Azadi Rally’ without permission from Mehsana to Dhanera in Banaskantha district in 2017.
Mevani was released on bail a week before that in a case registered by the Assam Police. On 19 April, Mevani was arrested by the Assam Police from Gujarat and taken to the northeastern state of Assam.
The Assam Police took this action against Mevani after he made an alleged tweet about Prime Minister Modi, in which he claimed that Prime Minister Modi “considers Godse as God”. Soon after he was granted bail on April 25 in a tweet related case, he was again arrested by the police for allegedly molesting a woman policeman.
On April 26, Barpeta Chief Judicial Magistrate Mukul Chetia sent Mevani to five-day police custody, refusing to grant him bail. After this, Mevani had filed a new bail petition on 28 April, on which he got bail after hearing.
The Barpeta district judge, while granting bail to Mevani on April 29, said that the police had fabricated a false case of molestation to keep him in custody. The court had also pulled up the Assam Police for registering a ‘false FIR’.
Mevani has been a vocal critic of the BJP government. After his release from Assam, he had said in a press briefing from the Congress headquarters in Delhi that the cases registered against him were part of a “pre-planned conspiracy” to “defame” him ahead of the Gujarat assembly elections.
(with input from news agency language)
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Categories: India, Politics