GUWAHATI: Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani was re-arrested by the Assam Police on Monday for allegedly assaulting and outraging the modesty of a lady police officer.
Earlier in the day, he was granted bail by the court of chief judicial magistrate, Kokrajhar in a case pertaining to his alleged controversial tweet against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Mevani’s lawyer Angshuman Bora said Assam’s Barpeta police had registered a case against the MLA on Sunday based on an FIR that he had “misbehaved, used obscene words, assaulted and inappropriately touched” the lady police officer in the escort party while he was being taken to Kokrajhar from the Guwahati airport on April 21 following his arrest the previous night from Gujarat.
“But the lady cop was silent for the last five days. Also, the police did not mention this case while raising objection to his bail petition on Sunday. This cropped up today (Monday) immediately after he was granted bail,” Bora said.
He said the Barpeta police had registered the case under IPC sections 294, 354 (non-bailable), 355 and 323. He will be produced in a court in Barpeta on Tuesday.
Mevani was arrested in the first case based on an FIR lodged by Arup Kumar Dey, a BJP Executive Member in Assam’s autonomous Bodoland Territorial Council.
In the FIR, Dey had written that Mevani mentioned in the tweet “the Prime Minister of India Mr Narendra Modi worships and considers ‘Godse’ as God and appealed that the PM on his visit on 20th April to Gujarat should make an appeal to the public for peace and harmony in areas…in Gujarat where communal violence had taken place.”
He alleged the circulation of the tweet had the propensity to disturb public tranquility, prejudicial to maintenance of harmony among a certain section of people.