In response to a bail petition moved around 7 pm Sunday, the Kokrajhar court sent Congress-backed Gujarat MLA and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani to judicial custody till Monday.
Assam Congress legal cell chief Monoj Bhagabati informed chief judicial magistrate-in-charge B. Kakati stated said Mevani’s bail petition would be decided on Monday. “The prosecution sought his police custody for 10 days,” Bhagabati added.
Mevani, 41, was arrested from Gujarat on Wednesday by a police team from Assam over a tweet on Prime Minister Narendra Modi that carried a reference to Nathuram Godse. The BJP is in power in both Assam and Gujarat.
On Thursday evening, Kokrajhar chief judicial magistrate N. Boro sent him to three days’ police custody, which ended on Sunday.
Kokrajhar police station registered the case on a complaint from Arup Kumar Dey, BJP leader and elected member of the Bodoland Territorial Council. Dey said that Mevani’s tweet had the “propensity” to disturb public tranquillity. To protest Mevani’s detention, Assam Congress president Bhupen Kumar Borah led a protest in Kokrajhar.
Mevani faces charges under several penal sections, such as those dealing with criminal conspiracy, promoting enmity between communities, defiling a place of worship, intentional insult to provoke breach of peace, and causing fear that induces an offence against the State or public tranquillity. He has also been booked under provisions of the Information Technology Act.
