Ahmedabad: Working president of the Gujarat Congress Committee Jignesh Mewani and 18 others were sentenced to six months in jail in connection with a 2016 case of rioting. The issue is related to a road blockade agitation in which Mewani and his associates took part. Additional chief metropolitan magistrate PN Goswami, who passed the jail term order, also imposed a fine on Mewani and others and suspended their sentence till October 17 so that they may file appeals.
In 2016, Mewani and 19 others took part in an agitation at the university police station and put up a road blockade. They demanded that an under-construction building in the law department should be christened after BR Ambedkar.
A first information report was registered against Mewani and others under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. One of the 19 agitators died during the trial of the case. A Dalit leader, Mewani won the 2017 assembly election as an independent candidate with Congress’s support and the party made him a working president of its state unit. Mewani has been sent to jail several times for organising agitations. The Assam police took him into custody in connection with a case a few months ago, but he was released.
