The court of the Kokrajhar Chief Judicial Magistrate has remanded Jignesh Mevani to three days police custody and also said that he cannot be taken out of Kokrajhar by the police. The independent Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Vadgam in Gujarat, was arrested on Wednesday night from the Palanpur circuit house in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district and taken to Assam the following morning. He has been accused of posting offensive tweets.
While two of his tweets have been blocked by Twitter in India, The Telegraph has shared the following text of the Tweets:
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who considers Godse his worshipping deity, is on a tour of Gujarat from April 20. I request him to make an appeal for peace in Himmatnagar, Khambat and Veraval which suffered communal clashes. This is the minimum one expects from the builder of Mahatma Mandir.”
“The traitors of Nagpur who didn’t accept the tricolor for decades, the same RSS people were dancing at a mosque with saffron flag in Veraval. Traitors, have some shame. Maintain peace and harmony in the country of Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqullah Khan.”
Mevani was arrested on a complaint filed by one Arup Kumar Dey of Bhabanipur village in Kokrajhar. According to Dey’s complaint, Mevani had tweeted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi worships and considers (Nathuram) Godse as God, and said that the Prime Minister should appeal to the public to maintain communal harmony in places like Himmatnagar and Khambat on his visit to the state on April 20. It is noteworthy that these are areas where communal violence had broken out recently. Dey claimed that the tweet could “incite a section of the masses belonging to a certain community to commit any offence against other community” and that the tweet could “cause disaffection towards a particular community”.
Mevani was booked under IPC sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 153 A (promoting enmity between groups), 295 A (outraging and insulting religious beliefs), 504 (insult with intent to provoke) and 505 (public mischief).
Meanwhile, Dey has identified himself as “an active BJP member”. In an interview to The Telegraph, he said, “As active BJP members, can we tolerate such tweets? Being a citizen of India and a BJP member, I cannot endure such unfair and unparliamentary tweets.”
Meanwhile, the Indian National Congress has thrown its weight behind Mevani. Monoj Bhagabati, the Assam PCC legal cell chairman, appeared for the MLA for the proceedings that took place at 8 P.M. It may be recalled that he could not join the Congress along with fellow activist-turned-politician Kanhaiya Kumar in September 2021 due to a technicality but would have joined after his term ended this year. Assembly elections are due in Gujarat this year, and Mevani had created history when he, a Dalit rights activist with modest means, had won the election despite running as an independent.
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