New Delhi: Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani has called for a statewide strike on June 1 if cases registered against Dalit people over 2016 Una flogging protests are not withdrawn.
The Dalit leader who was arrested by Assam police in back-to-back cases – one over criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the other alleging molestation, which was called a ‘false case’ by a court – addressed a large public gathering at Ahmedabad upon returning from Assam.
“If this government does not withdraw cases registered against Dalits during the Una protests, then Gujarat will be closed on June 1,” Mevani said, according to Indian Express.
In 2016, four Dalit men were stripped, flogged and marched naked in Una, a town in the Gir Somnath district of Gujarat, after a group of cow vigilantes attacked the family of a man whose primary occupation was skinning dead cattle.
Mevani became the face of the large-scale protests that followed.
“The cases should be withdrawn the way cases related to Patidar agitation were withdrawn…it was good that they did it…we support it,” Mevani said in Ahmedabad.
In March 2022, the Gujarat government withdrew 10 cases, including against Hardik Patel, filed in connection with the 2015 Patidar quota stir.
Gujarat assembly polls are expected at the end of 2022.
In his address, Mevani also lauded the judge who granted him bail, with cold observations on Assam Police’s behaviour – observations which have since been stayed by Gauhati high court.
The Barpeta court had pulled up the state police for lodging a “false FIR” against Mevani and requested the high court to consider directing the Assam Police to prevent the registration of a false FIR like the present case.
“Nowadays, the number of people with spine has become fewer than those with a strong spine. But I — Jignesh Mevani, an accused — am saluting the judge for showing strong spine.”
Mevani said he would not delete the tweet against Modi for which he was arrested and said that he would fight the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh across the country.
Mevani said the second case slapped on him by Assam Police, based on an alleged complaint of molestation by a policewoman, was a conspiracy. This is the case that the court had called “false.” Mevani said that while he was being taken to Kokrajhar, after his arrest in the tweet case, a woman officer was made to sit next to him instead of a front or rear seat in the vehicle, in an effort to frame him.
This article first appeared on thewire.in