Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani and 30 others acquitted in 2017 Gujarat train disruption case

Gujarat :  An Ahmedabad court on Tuesday acquitted Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani and 30 others in a case of disrupting a train during a protest in 2017. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate PN Goswami acquitted all the accused, including 13 women.

Presently Vadgam MLA Jignesh Mevani and others were accused of blocking trains at Kalupur railway station for 20 minutes as part of the Rail Roko protest. This demonstration was done against the policies of the state government. A case was registered against Mevani and others under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for the 2017 incident. Additionally, he was also charged under Section 153 of the Railways Act. In 2021, a sessions court had refused to discharge Mevani in the case. The acquittal comes after Mevani and six others got another legal sanction in a case filed in 2016 for alleged unlawful assembly, rioting and damage to public property at the Income Tax Square in Ahmedabad last November. The 2016 incident involved a demonstration, allegedly without police permission, in support of sanitation workers of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, during which a police vehicle was allegedly vandalized.