Finally, Dalit Leader Jignesh Mevani Gets Bail by Assam Court in Second Case

Barpeta (Assam): Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani was granted bail by a court in Assam's Barpeta district on Friday in a case related to the alleged assault of a woman police officer.

Barpeta District and Sessions judge Paresh Chakraborty granted bail to Mevani on a Personal Recognisance (PR) bond of Rs 1,000 in the case filed at the Barpeta Road police station.

The court had heard Mevani's lawyer and the public prosecutor on Thursday on the bail application and reserved the order for Friday.

The dalit leader was arrested in this case on Monday soon after he was released on bail in another case in Kokrajhar district.

Mevani, an Independent MLA backed by the Congress, was first arrested on April 19 from Palanpur town in Gujarat, and was brought to Kokrajhar for tweeting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

It is alleged that he assaulted the woman officer when she was accompanying him from Guwahati airport to Kokrajhar along with senior police officials.

In this case, he was booked under IPC Sections 294 (uttering obscene words in public), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 353 (assaulting a public servant in the execution of duty) and 354 (using criminal force to a woman intending to outrage her modesty).

The court had Tuesday sent him to five days in police custody.

Assam Congress MP Abdul Khaleque Wednesday had demanded the immediate release of Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani and a judicial inquiry into the case filed against him for alleged assault of a woman police officer in Barpeta for which he was rearrested after being granted bail in a case related to a tweet against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He said Mevani's arrest was a ''full fledged conspiracy" and expressed scepticism over the incident which had reportedly taken place when he was in police custody after being brought to Kokrajhar in Assam from Gujarat for his tweet.

''An independent judicial inquiry must be instituted into the fabricated case immediately as the police is not independent in Assam and is acting under political pressure. He should be released immediately," said Khaleque, who is an MP from Barpeta, where the alleged assault of the woman police officer took place. 

He said Mevani had tweeted in Gujarat. "Then why was a case filed in Assam? It is obvious that the Assam chief minister wants to please the prime minister. It is shameful for a chief minister to behave in such a manner''.

Khaleque claimed that he had filed a case against Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma but the police did not register it despite a local court's direction to do so.