Congress leader who ‘caused woman intelligence officer to fall’ during press conference in Kutch sent to judicial custody
Assistant intelligence officer Reena Chauhan alleged in an FIR that Haresh Ahir ‘removed her chair, laughed aloud and said there can’t be a chair for her’.
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The incident had kicked off a political storm with Gujarat Home Minister Harsh Saghavi alleging that Ahir’s behaviour betrayed the “anti-women and anti-Dalit mentality” of Congress. (Express Archives) Congress leader Haresh Ahir, who was arrested on Thursday after he allegedly injured a woman officer of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) by causing her to fall on the floor during a press conference in the Bhuj town of Kutch, has been sent to judicial custody by a magistrate after police did not seek his remand.
Ahir was arrested by Kutch West police after he allegedly removed the chair of Reena Chauhan, an assistant intelligence officer with the Bhuj office of the Gujarat IB, while she tried to sit back after standing up to be photographed at a press conference organised by Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani.
As per an FIR filed at the ‘A’ Division police station in Bhuj, the 34-year-old officer sustained minor injuries in her spinal cord and waist and was admitted to a hospital in Bhuj. After she fell to the floor, Chauhan alleged in her FIR, Ahir “laughed aloud” and told her “she didn’t deserve a chair and that there can’t be any chair for her”.
Late on Sunday afternoon, police produced Ahir before a magistrate in Bhuj. “We did not seek his remand as it was not required. The incident took place in an area under CCTV surveillance and given the nature of the case, no discovery or recovery is to be made in an investigation. Hence, the magistrate sent him to judicial custody,” AR Zankar, deputy superintendent of police of Kutch East (Scheduled castes/Scheduled Tribe cell) told The Indian Express on Monday. He is the investigating officer of the case.
The incident had kicked off a political storm with Gujarat Home Minister Harsh Saghavi alleging that Ahir’s behaviour betrayed the “anti-women and anti-Dalit mentality” of Congress.
However, the conference organiser Mevani, who is also a Dalit, had hit back, saying Chauhan was not invited to his press conference about demanding the possession of land allotted to Dalits of Kutch, and that she had misused the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act to file a false complaint.
Ahir, who is the coordinator of the Kisan Congress cell, was arrested within hours of the incident after he was booked under Bharatiya Nayaya Sanhita’s Sections 121(1) (voluntarily causing hurt to a public servant discharging his/her official duty), 221 (obstructing a public servant from discharging his/her official duty) and 133 (assault or criminal force to a person, intending thereby to dishonour that person) and under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
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