Pawan Khera detention: Less than a year ago, there was Jignesh Mevani

Then an Independent MLA, Congress leader Mevani was arrested by Assam Police and brought to Kokrajhar; like in Khera's case, his arrest was over “remarks against Modi”; giving Mevani bail, court had pulled up police

Then independent MLA Jignesh Mevani, was arrested in April 2022. (Facebook: Jignesh Mevani)

4 min readGuwahatiFeb 23, 2023 08:57 PM IST First published on: Feb 23, 2023 at 04:03 PM IST

THE DETENTION of Pawan Khera, Chairman, Media & Publicity Department, AICC, as he was about to take the flight to Raipur for the Congress plenary session, has several parallels to the arrest of another Congress leader, Jignesh Mevani, in April 2022.

With Assembly elections in Gujarat due in months, Mevani, then an Independent MLA, was picked up at night by the Assam Police from Gujarat’s Banaskantha district and flown to Guwahati.

Must Read | Granting Mevani bail, court raps Assam Police for ‘abusing process of court and law’

Khera was detained by an Assam Police team a day after an FIR was registered against him at Haflong Police Station of Assam’s Dima Hasao. The Assam Police told The Indian Express that they would bring Khera for further interrogation.

Like Khera, the case against Mevani, who was arrested on April 22, 2022, was over a purported insult to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A complaint was made by a local BJP leader in Kokrajhar regarding a tweet from Mevani’s account that reportedly said Modi “considered Godse as God”.

A local court remanded Mevani in three-day judicial custody, at the end of which the court reserved its judgment for the next day, sending him to judicial custody for a day. While the Assam Police sought 10 days’ custody, Mevani’s lawyers argued that there was no “prima facie evidence for the charges” against the MLA and the whole case was “concocted”.

Though he was granted bail on April 25, Mevani was re-arrested in a fresh case based on a complaint filed in the neighbouring district of Barpeta. A woman inspector said Mevani had used “slang words” against her, assaulted her and “outraged my modesty by touching me inappropriately while pushing”, as the police were bringing him in a government vehicle from Guwahati to Kokrajhar.

Read | Pawan Khera detention: Cong tears into BJP, says ‘British did the same to our leaders pre-Independence’

Finally, Barpeta District and Sessions Judge Aparesh Chakravarty released Mevani on bail on April 29, even as he pulled up the state police for lodging a “false FIR” and “abusing the process of the court and the law”. “It (the case) was manufactured for the purpose of keeping the accused in detention for a longer period, abusing the process of the court and the law,” it said.

The judge also cited “ongoing police excesses in the state”, and urged the Gauhati High Court to direct the police force to “reform itself”.

Both the bail order and the observations regarding the Assam Police made by the Barpeta District and Sessions Court were challenged by the Assam government in the Gauhati High Court. Following this, on May 2, the High Court stayed some of the observations, stating that they were made “without there being any materials on record”.

These observations included Judge Chakravarty asking the High Court to consider directing “each and every police personnel engaged in law and order duty to wear body cameras, to install CCTV cameras in vehicles while arresting an accused or taking an accused to some place for recoveries of goods or other reasons, and also install CCTV cameras inside all police stations”.

It also stayed the part where Chakravarty observed that the “testament of the victim” showed that the case had been “manufactured for the purpose of keeping the accused for a longer period, abusing the process of the court and law”.

The cases against Mevani are still being heard; he continues to be out on bail.