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A court in Ahmedabad on Friday sentenced Gujarat Congress's working president and MLA Jignesh Mevani and 18 others to six months' simple imprisonment in a 2016 case of rioting. The case was related to a road blockade agitation staged by Mevani and his associates. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate P N Goswami, who also imposed a fine on Mevani and others, suspended their sentence till October 17 to enable them file appeals. The case was registered against Mevani and 19 others at the University police station here in 2016 for staging road blockade to press their demand that an under-construction building of the law department of Gujarat University be named for Dr B R Ambedkar. The First Information Report was registered under Indian Penal Code sections 143 (unlawful assembly) and 147 (rioting) as well as sections of the Gujarat Police Act. One of the accused died during the pendency of the case. Mevani, a prominent Dalit leader, won the 2017 Assembly election as an independ
A group of social activists will take out a 'padyatra' (foot march) from Randhikpur in Dahod district of Gujarat to Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to protest the release of 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case. The 11 were released from a jail in Godhra on August 15 after they were granted remission by the Gujarat government. The activists will march under the banner of 'Hindu Muslim Ekta Samiti' and cover the 180-kilometre distance between September 26 and October 4, with social activist Sandeep Pandey and MLA Jignesh Mevani set to participate along with 25 others, organising committee member Kalim Siddique said. The release of the convicts is a matter of shame in a country that is identified the world over for its spirituality and the values and virtues of Mahatma Gandhi, the group said in a release. "It is a shame that Gujarat, which produced a global stalwart like Mahatma Gandhi, is silent today on people who have committed heinous crimes," it added. There was need to speak out