Police's action led to violence, argues Hardik's lawyer

Arguing for his release on bail, the Patel quota agitation leader Hardik Patel's lawyer today argued in the Gujarat High Court that the violence after the August 25 rally had happened because of the police's use of force.
Hardik is facing sedition cases in Ahmedabad and Surat for inciting violence during the agitation last year.
Arguing before Justice A J Desai, his lawyer Zubin Bharda said Hardik was fighting for his community and not against the government. During the mammoth rally of Patel community at GMDC ground here last August, Hardik had appealed for maintaining peace many times but the use of force by the police led to the violence, he said.

"Police resorted to lathi-charge. Charge-sheet states that public property was damaged at the GMDC ground which is not possible as the ground itself is empty," he said.
Narendra Gadhvi, who submitted CD of speeches to the police implicating Hardik, was himself not present to hear them and had downloaded them from YouTube, Bharda said.
"If speeches were seditious...Then why did the police not initiate action to remove them (from YouTube)?" he said.

Hardik's speech, in which he invoked Bhagat Singh, was misinterpreted by the police, he contended. "When we think of Bhagat Singh, we recall that he bombed the British but what Hardik meant was not bombing literally but symbolically bombing the government out of power through the ballot."

According to the call intercepts cited by police in the charge sheet, Hardik likened himself to Bhagat Singh and said he had the guts to plant bombs in the Assembly.
He also said that government representatives, during the
negotiations with agitators, had used a threatening tone, saying that paperwork for Hardik's detention was ready if he did not agree to the government's terms.
Bharda also downplayed the conversation between Hardik and a fellow activist in Surat in which Hardik advised the latter to kill the policemen rather than committing suicide (which led to filing of a sedition case against him in Surat). Hardik was only trying to dissuade his friend from taking the extreme step, the lawyer said.

Earlier, courts in Surat and Ahmedabad rejected the bail pleas filed by Hardik, following which he moved the HC. He is at present lodged in Lajpore jail in Surat district.
The next hearing is likely on April 13 when his lawyer would continue the arguments.