Independent Gujarat MLA and Dalit leader Jignesh Mewani on Monday addressed a press conference along with other Congress leaders and slammed the Assam government and police for his arrest. He also targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a “conspiracy” to tarnish his image ahead of state elections later this year.
“I call this 56-inches of cowardice, using a woman to frame me in a false case… the Prime Minister’s Office was involved in this conspiracy,” the Gujarat legislator said.
“Some Godse bhakts who are sitting in the PMO were behind my arrest,” he told reporters at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi.
Mewani, in a reference to the famous dialogue from the South Indian movie Pushpa, said that he would not bow down to such pressures as he is “fire” and not a “flower”. He added that there is every chance that the government may have “planted something” in his electronic devises, including the mobile phones and laptops seized from him and his team members.
There had been 22 instances of question paper leak in Gujarat, the legislator argued, but no case had been lodged, no arrests made or no investigation carried out.
“Neither was there any probe into the huge drug haul at Mundra port and nor were there investigations or arrests into the allegations of rape levelled against a Gujarat Minister by a Dalit woman. A call for genocide of a particular community was made from a Dharam Sansad but no action was taken,” he said.
Mevani added: “My tweet was simple. I was merely asking the Prime Minister to appeal for peace and harmony. For that, they arrested me. What does it show? It was a pre-planned conspiracy to destroy me…. I was not provided a copy of the FIR… the Sections slapped against me were not disclosed to me. I was not allowed to talk to my lawyer… my privilege as an MLA was disregarded. The Speaker of the Gujarat Assembly was not informed about my arrest… Perhaps he was informed after I was taken to Assam and once I was in their custody. This has hurt the pride of Gujarat. The Gujarat government should also be ashamed.”
Jignesh Mewani, stressing that the Assam’s Himanta Biswa Sarma government should be “ashamed” given the strong remarks by the court that granted him bail, said: “On April 19th FIR was registered. Police travelled over 2,500 kilometres on the same day to arrest me. It was a pre-planned conspiracy to destroy me.”
An Assam police team last month had arrested the Independent MLA from Gujarat’s Palanpur town over a couple of tweets that criticised PM Modi. The case had been filed by a BJP leader in Assam.
Mewani was granted bail in the case on April 25 by a local court. However, he was immediately rearrested by Assam police in an assault case filed by a policewoman, which the court has said was “manufactured”.
He was finally released from jail on Saturday after a local court in Assam granted him bail on Friday.
Assam’s Barpeta sessions court, severely criticising the state police for trying to frame him in its order granting bail to Mr Mevani, requested the Gauhati High Court to take up a petition on its own against recent police excesses in the state.
“Converting our hard-earned democracy into a police state is simply unthinkable,” Justice Aparesh Chakraborty, the sessions court judge, had 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 had 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 had added.
The sessions court had also urged the Gauhati High Court to order the Assam Police to wear body cameras and install CCTV cameras in their vehicles to capture the sequence of events when an accused is taken into custody.
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