GUWAHATI: Arrested Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani was freed on bail in Assam’s Kokrajhar on Monday, only for Barpeta police to take him into custody again on charges of assaulting a woman cop the day he was brought to the state to face a probe into allegedly provocative tweets on PM Narendra Modi.
“BJP and RSS are doing this to tarnish my image and they are doing this systematically. They did it to Rohit Vemula, they did it to Chandrasekhar Azad. Now they are targeting me,” the Independent MLA from Vadgam said.
A Kokrajhar court had remanded Mevani in police custody for three days on April 21, a day after an Assam police team arrested him from Gujarat’s Palanpur and flew him out overnight. Police’s request for extended custody was denied by the first-class judicial magistrate on Sunday. The Dalit leader spent the night in judicial custody before being allowed bail when the hearing resumed in the morning.
“My client was re-arrested in a fresh case filed in Barpeta district this time,” Mevani’s counsel and senior high court advocate Angshuman Bora said.
Bora claimed Barpeta police didn’t provide even a copy of the FIR or the complaint, based on which Mevani was taken into custody a second time. The police team carried a production warrant mentioning it as “a case of assault on a woman police officer with intent to outrage her modesty, assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharging duty, voluntarily causing hurt and indulging in obscene acts and songs,” the counsel said.
Mevani allegedly committed these offences while being taken from Guwahati airport to Kokrajhar by road on April 21. He is scheduled to be produced in a Barpeta court on Tuesday.
