A local court in Assam’s Barpeta district Tuesday rejected Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani’s bail plea and remanded him in five days’ police custody, his lawyers said.
Even as a court in Kokrajhar granted bail to the MLA on Monday in the case pertaining to an allegedly defamatory tweet, Mevani was rearrested in a fresh case filed in Barpeta under various charges, including assault on a public servant and outraging a woman’s modesty.
Mevani’s lawyer and senior advocate Angshuman Bora said he would now move the “bail application on a higher forum” in the next few days.
In the Barpeta case, Mevani has been booked under IPC sections 294 (obscene acts in public place), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of duty) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt).
Barpeta superintendent of police (SP) Amitava Sinha had earlier told The Indian Express that the case had been registered on the basis of a complaint filed at Barpeta Road police station by a woman police inspector from Kokrajhar on April 21, the morning after Mevani was arrested from Gujarat’s Banaskantha district.
As per the complainant, Mevani had allegedly hurled “slang words” at her and “physically pushed her” while they were in the government vehicle on the way from Guwahati airport to Kokrajhar on April 21. The alleged assault took place when the vehicle was crossing Simlaguri in Barpeta district.
“He pointed finger towards me, tried to frighten me, and pushed me on my seat with force. He thus assaulted me during the execution of my legal duty of being a public servant and outraged my modesty by touching me inappropriately while pushing,” she has said in her complaint. According to the FIR, two other police officers – including Surjeet Singh Panesar, Additional SP (HQ) Kokrajhar – were present in the government vehicle.
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Mevani, an Independent MLA who had pledged support to the Congress last September, was arrested by the Assam Police from Gujarat on April 20 following a complaint filed against him by a local BJP leader in Kokrajhar regarding a purported tweet from his account against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Meanwhile, the Assam Congress continued to hold demonstrations to protest Mevani’s “unlawful arrest”. On Monday evening, Congress leaders, including Leader of Opposition Debabrata Saikia and MP Abdul Khaleque, took out a march inside the Assam Assembly campus in Guwahati.
