A Gujarat court today sentenced Patidar quota agitation leader Hardik Patel and two of his aides to two years imprisonment in a case of rioting and arson in Visnagar town here in July 2015.
Later, Hardik and his two aides - Lalji Patel and A K Patel - were granted bail by the same court.
The sentence dashes 25-year-old Hardik's hopes of contesting elections, unless it is suspended or reversed by the higher courts.
The court granted bail to Hardik and his aides to allow them to file their appeals in the high court before August 27.
If they fail to do so within this time-frame, the trio will have to present themselves before the Visnagar court for the execution of the sentence against them.
Visnagar Sessions Court Judge V P Agarwal held the trio guilty under the Indian Penal Code sections pertaining to rioting, arson, damage to property and unlawful assembly.
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They were awarded two years of imprisonment, along with a fine of Rs 50,000 each, which they deposited in the court today.
However, the other 14 accused were let off by the court for want of enough evidence against them.
From the penalty collection of Rs 1,50,000, the court ordered that Rs 10,000 be given to TV channel reporter Suresh Vanol, Rs 1 lakh to the owner of a car torched by the mob during violence and Rs 40,000 to local BJP MLA, Rishikesh Patel, towards damage caused to his property.
Hardik was one of the accused in the FIR which was filed in Mehsana district on July 23, 2015, when a rally of the Patel community seeking reservation turned violent in Visnagar, resulting in damage to property and assault on some media persons.
During the violent agitation, the mob had torched a car and vandalised the office of local BJP MLA Rishikesh Patel.
A rally of more than 25,000 people of the Patel community demanding reservation was organised on July 23, 2015, which was the initial stage of the quota movement in Gujarat.
At that time, Hardik Patel was not a known figure and one of the foot soldiers of Lalji Patel, the president of the Sardar Patel Group (SPG), a quota agitation body.
The rally in Visnagar was the first prominent event of the quota movement when Hardik Patel came into limelight.
As per the case details, when the rally reached near the office of MLA Patel, some Patidar community members tried to meet him to hand over a memorandum of their demands.
However, when they did not find the MLA in his office, they got angry and ransacked his office.
It was also alleged that the protesters torched a car parked on a road in the area. Some media persons were also attacked by the mob at that time.
The complainant in the case was TV channel reporter Vanol, who was thrashed by those present in the rally.
Expressing his displeasure over today's verdict, Hardik termed it as the "murder of democracy".
Hardik claimed that neither he nor Lalji Patel were present when the alleged incident took place in Visnagar.
"I feel that today's verdict is a murder of democracy. Both me and Lalji were not even present in the rally when the incident took place. No eyewitnesses had claimed during the trial that they saw me at the spot. Therefore, I am shocked by the verdict," he told reporters in Ahmedabad.
He blamed the ruling BJP saying that it had influenced the judiciary to give this verdict so as "to prevent him from contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha polls".
"While many cases have been pending for over 20 years, verdict in my case came in just three years. This verdict has proved that the BJP can get the judiciary to deliver a verdict suitable to the party. BJP can go to any limits," Hardik alleged.
He said despite the verdict, he would go ahead with his plan to sit on an indefinite fast from August 25 over the issue of reservation to Patidars and farm loan waiver.