Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani sent to five days in police custody in assault case

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Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani was remanded to five days in police custody on Tuesday by a court in Assam's Barpeta district in an assault case filed by a woman police officer.

Chief Judicial Magistrate Mukul Chetia remanded Mevani to police custody when he was produced in his court in the afternoon.

Mevani has been 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).

He 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 officers.

Assam Congress leaders demanding Mevani's release taken to police station, released later

Senior Assam Congress leaders who brought out a march demanding release of arrested Independent MLA of Gujarat Jignesh Mevani were stopped and taken to a police station here in Barpeta district before being released after some time on Tuesday.

District Superintendent of Police Amitabh Sinha said none was taken into custody and he will give the details later.

Congress MP Abdul Khaleq who was one of the leaders taken to the Barpeta police station alleged that the BJP has no respect for democracy and "is all out to stifle freedom of speech which we cannot allow at any cost. We demand immediate release of Mevani".

Khaleq said that besides him, Congress MLAs Abdur Rahim Ahmed, Jakir Hussain Sikdar, Pradip Sarkar, Indian Youth Congress President Srinivas BV and other party leaders have taken out the procession here demanding immediate release of the Dalit leader and were marching to the Deputy Commissioners office when the police stopped them.

"We were forcefully put inside police vans and taken to Barpeta police station. After some time, we were released," Khaleq, the Lok Sabha member from Barpeta, told PTI.

The released leaders then sat on a dharna demanding release of Mevani. A group of Congress workers was already demonstrating near the Deputy Commissioner's office on the same demand.

Sikdar alleged that the BJP government wants to "destroy democracy and move towards autocracy. They have no regard for the fundamental rights of citizens and freedom of speech".

He claimed that the Assam Police is being used by the BJP as a puppet to fulfil their "vested interests".

The alleged incident occurred when she was escorting the Dalit leader from Guwahati airport to Kokrajhar in a government vehicle on April 21, according to the FIR registered on the same day in Barpeta Road police station.

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