Hardik aide arrested for holding protest without permission

The Gujarat Police on Tuesday arrested Dinesh Bhambhania, a close associate of Patidar agitation spearhead Hardik Patel, for holding a protest rally a year ago without allegedly seeking adequate official permission.

The Aravalli district police is likely to pick up Hardik Patel on the same charges for holding the public meeting organized by his Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) at Tenpur town on September 22, 2015.

This was the same meeting from where Patel had gone mysteriously missing when police was after him and a habeus corpus writ petition later filed in the Gujarat High Court seeking directions to police to present him in the court.

However, Hardik himself appeared before the court, which reprimanded him for going to the media first instead of the court.

In this case, police is likely to go to Udaipur, where Hardik is currently stationed on exile, to "complete just the formality of arresting him since it is a bailable offence", a police official said.

Already, over 35 persons, charged under Indian Penal Code's Section 188 (disobedience of order duly promulgated by public servant), have been arrested and subsequently released.

Patel however used it take a dig at the BJP government saying that this only exposed its false claims that dozens of cases had been withdrawn against the agitating Patels.

"About two-three months ago, the BJP government had announced that it had withdrawn over 90 per cent of cases but this is an eyewash as these arrests show. Where is the sympathy for the Patidars the government claims?"

"They want to keep the Patels entangled in police and legal formalities for long," Hardik said in a video message circulated on social media.

Meanwhile, a police official said that the "arrest would only be a formality, but he is making an issue of it".

--IANS

desai/vd