PATNA: After evading police for nearly a fortnight and causing strains between Bihar’s ruling JD(U) and BJP over the communal clashes, Union minister Ashwini Choubey’s son Arjit Shashwat staged a dramatic surrender before the cops on Saturday midnight and was sent to judicial custody for 14 days on Sunday.
Shashwat’s anticipatory bail petition was rejected by a Bhagalpur court a few hours before his surrender. He reached the Hanuman temple near Patna Junction railway station along with dozens of his supporters and handed himself to police. Bihar’s ADGP (headquarters) SK Singhal, however, said the young BJP leader was arrested.
An arrest warrant was issued against Shashwat and eight others by a Bhagalpur court on March 24 after they were named as accused in a case pertaining to the communal clashes that erupted in a Muslim-populated area of Bhagalpur’s Nathnagar on March 17. The clashes took place during a procession of BJP, RSS and Bajrang Dal workers led by Shashwat in the town. Stone pelting and firing incidents occurred after protests against provocative slogans chanted by the participants. Twenty people, including six policemen, were injured.
"As a law-abiding citizen, I surrendered myself before police as per the court order. I was not absconding because I have not committed any crime. If raising slogans like ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ and ‘Jai Sri Ram’ is a crime, then I may be called a criminal," said Shashwat, an MBA with an engineering degree from BIT Mesra, to reporters.
He was taken to Bhagalpur amid high security and produced before additional chief judicial magistrate AR Upadhyay at the latter’s residence. The judge sent him to judicial custody for 14 days. “We will file a bail petition shortly. I hope he would not have to stay behind bars for 14 days,” said his lawyer Biresh Prasad Mishra.
Bihar’s ruling JD(U), which was under attack from the Opposition RJD and Congress over the failure of police to arrest Shashwat, described his judicial custody as proof of the rule of law in the state. But RJD and Congress accused the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government of showing no willingness to arrest Shashwat.
A fresh round of political blame game erupted after Ashwini Choubey, the Union minister of state for health and family welfare, accused Bhagalpur’s Congress MLA Ajit Sharma and RJD leaders of conspiring to get an FIR registered against Shashwat.
“Now that he (Shashwat) has been arrested and sent to jail, the chapter is closed. He has shown respect for the law. There is no denying the fact that dozens of RJD workers were in the processions holding saffron flags,” said JD(U) national secretary general KC Tyagi.
After the communal clashes in Bhagalpur, Bihar witnessed similar incidents in at least seven other districts – Aurangabad, Samastipur, Munger, Nalanda, Siwan, Sasaram and Nawada. “A total of 15 cases have been registered in these incidents and 214 have been arrested so far,” said ADGP SK Singhal.