They did it to Rohit Vemula, Chandrasekhar Azad, now they are targeting me: Jignesh Mevani

Gujarat MLA and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani has been re-arrested by the Assam Police moments after he was granted bail in a case over tweets criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He has now been arrested for allegedly assaulting officials, India Today reported.

“It’s very sad to know that police have arrived in Kokrajhar to re-arrest Jignesh Mevani in connection with a case filed against him in two more districts – Barpeta and Goalpara. We have heard that two fresh FIRs have been filed against him. We knew from before that this would happen and we are prepared for it,” India Today TV quotes Mevani’s lawyer Angshuman Bora as saying.

Mevani, an arch critic of PM Modi, was first arrested on Thursday from Gujarat’s Palanpur by a team of Assam police after a local BJP leader from Assam’s Kokrajhar filed a complaint against him over tweets on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mevani’s three day police custody had ended on Sunday, after which he was produced before the court late in the evening. The court then sent him to one-day judicial custody.

Mevani has called his first arrest “vendetta politics by the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office)”. “It is a conspiracy by the BJP and the RSS. They did this to tarnish my image. They have been doing this systematically. They did it to Rohit Vemula, they did it to Chandrasekhar Azad, now they are targeting me,” Mevani told reporters today.

The Congress and other Opposition parties staged protests in Assam in support of Mevani following his arrest.