Guwahati: In a case involving tweets about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani was granted bail by an Assam court. Yesterday, the court had reserved its decision on the bail application.
Mr Mevani was arrested by an Assam police squad on Thursday in Gujarat’s Palanpur after a local BJP leader in Assam’s Kokrajhar lodged a complaint against him. Mr Mevani, an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Modi, has described his detention as “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,” Mr Mevani told reporters today.
The 41-year-old has been charged with criminal conspiracy, trespassing near a place of worship, inciting religious fervour, and provocation that could lead to a breach of peace.
Mr Mevani’s tweets, according to BJP leader Arup Kumar Dey, are “likely to excite a part of the public belonging to a certain community.”
Mevani was charged under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 153(A) (promoting enmity between two communities), 295(A), 504 (intentional insult with the purpose to incite breach of peace), and parts of the Information Technology Act.
A couple of Mevani’s tweets are missing from his stream, with a notification stating that the tweets have been withheld in India due to a “legal demand.”
Mevani is said to have asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to maintain communal unity during his recent visit to Gujarat in the contentious tweet.
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