Booked for violence at Botad farmers’ meet, AAP leaders arrested from Ahmedabad

With this, the total number of arrested persons rose to 67, said DySP Maharshi Raval of Botad Police.

Anticipating their arrest in the case, the AAP had announced a couple of days ago that Karpada and Ram would stage a protest at the party office in Ahmedabad on October 16.

Speaking to mediapersons during their arrest on Thursday morning, the AAP leaders said they were ready to face any action but that the government should release the farmers arrested in the case.

AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal, who had spoken by phone to families of those previously arrested in this case on Wednesday evening, put out a video on social media site X on Thursday morning, after the arrest of the two leaders in Gujarat.
Kejriwal said, “On October 12, the farmers in Gujarat met at Hadadad village in Botad to make two demands. One was to stop the kadada pratha where some traders would purchase some amount of the produce at the full agreed upon rate and then put the rest at lower rates. The second demand is regarding the farmers being asked to transport their produce to the trader’s warehouse at their own expense.”

The former Delhi CM added, “When farmers gathered there, the 30-year-old BJP government behaved in a barbaric manner and conducted lathicharge and shot teargas shells at unarmed farmers. That same day, the farmers were booked for attempt to murder and several of them were arrested. AAP has been standing with farmers at each step. Our leaders Raju Karpada and Pravin Ram have been arrested. I tell the Gujarat government to accept the demands of the farmers, to take back the cases against the farmers and put us in jail. You can file more cases on AAP leaders but not on the farmers. I tell the farmers this can happen to you tomorrow.”

The FIR was filed in the wee hours of October 13 following the violent conflict between AAP workers and farmers, and the police in Hadadad village on October 12 evening, which saw stone pelting, destruction of police vehicles on one side, and lathicharge and teargas shelling from the other.

The official stance of the AAP has been that the farmers’ meet (kisan mahapanchayat) held in Hadadad village on October 12 was peaceful but was infiltrated by unknown persons, leading to the violence. The kisan mahapanchayat in Hadadad itself was to discuss the ‘kadada pratha’ in Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) where farmers claimed they were not given agreed upon prices from their crops.

The police had produced the 65 persons earlier arrested in the case, in a local court in Botad on Wednesday and sought remand of 18 of them for their alleged role in criminal conspiracy and violence during the kisan mahapanchayat in Hadadad village on October 12. The court granted three days remand till October 18, said DySP Raval.

AAP leader Sagar Rabari had on Wednesday night said that during the hearing, one of the accused persons had complained of mistreatment by the police. DySP Raval confirmed that the complaint had been made to the court.