Guwahati: Court in Assam has slammed the state police for attempting to link Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani to a “fabricated case” of assault on a female officer.
Mr Mevani, who was arrested in the “fabricated” assault case on April 25 just days after being granted bail by another Assam court in a case involving tweets about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was granted bail by an Assam court in Barpeta yesterday.
In its judgment granting bail to Mr Mevani, the Barpeta sessions court suggested that the Gauhati High Court take up a case against recent police excesses in the state on its own.
In Assam, the BJP is in power, and Mr Mevani has claimed that the ruling party is behind his incarceration for his anti-Modi tweets and subsequent alleged attack on a woman constable, which the court has now labeled a “fabricated case.”
The sessions court further requested that the Gauhati High Court direct the Assam Police to wear body cameras and install CCTV cameras in their cars to record the sequence of events when an accused is apprehended.
“Converting our hard-earned democracy into a police state is simply unthinkable,” sessions court judge Justice Aparesh Chakraborty said in the order. “If the instant case is accepted to be true and in view of the statement of the woman recorded by the magistrate…which is not, then we will have to rewrite the criminal jurisprudence of the country,” the court said.
“Contrary to the FIR (first information report), the woman has given a different story before the learned magistrate…In view of the testimony of the woman, the instant case is manufactured for the purpose of keeping the accused Jignesh Mevani in detention for a longer period, abusing of the process of the court and the law,” the court said.
“To prevent registration of false FIR like the present one and to give credibility to the police version of occurrences…and police personnel firing and killing or injuring such accused, which has become a routine phenomenon in the state, the Hon’ble Gauhati High Court may perhaps consider directing the Assam Police to reform itself by taking some measures like directing every police personnel to wear body cameras, to install CCTV in vehicles while arresting an accused…Otherwise our state will become a police state, which the society can ill afford,” the sessions court said.
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