Ahmedabad: On Friday Gujarat Police detained Jignesh Mevani, who led a Dalit movement to protest against the Una flogging incident.
PM Modi landed in Gujarat just hours before 29-year-old Mohammad Ayyub succumbed to a brutal thrashing at the hands of so-called gau rakshaks on 16 September.
PM Modi was there to meet his mother Hiraba to celebrate his 66th birthday her.
Dubbing it ‘Dadri Part II’, the Una Dalit leader Jignesh asked Dalits to rally behind Ayyub’s family to demand justice.
Following the statement of Mevani, Jignesh was first taken into preventive detention from the Ahmedabad airport late Friday evening, after that placed under house arrest post-midnight.
He was allowed to go to Dholka city late Saturday afternoon to address a scheduled rally on the condition that he would be accompanied by police officials.
AAP leader Ashutosh claimed that several Patidar leaders and party volunteers were detained since yesterday, in view of PM Modi’s visit to his home state.
“Mevani was arrested immediately after he landed in Ahemdabad from Delhi. Many AAP volunteers have also been detained. This shows the BJP fear that its days in the state are numbered,” Ashutosh said.
“This is the way a king (Modi) celebrates his birthday. Dahod, Ahemdabad, Navsari and Gandhinagar have been turned into fortresses. While being the Chief Minister of the state, Modi would refer people of the state as his 5 crore Gujaratis, but now he is afraid of the same citizens,” Ashutosh said.
BJP is facing a challenge in Gujarat ahead of next year’s polls in the aftermath of Patel quota agitation and the protests of Dalit community after the Una atrocity incident.
With PTI inputs