• Jignesh Mevani, a Gujarat Congress MLA, has been sentenced to six months in prison for rioting.

    Politics
    Jignesh Mevani, a Gujarat Congress MLA, has been sentenced to six months in prison for rioting.

    Digital Desk: Jignesh Mevani, Gujarat Congress working president
    and MLA, and 18 others were sentenced to six months in jail for rioting in
    2016.



    Jignesh Mevani and his associates staged a road blockade
    agitation in this case.



    Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate P N Goswami suspended
    Mevani's and others' sentences until October 17 to allow them to file appeals.



    Jignesh Mevani and 19 others were charged in 2016 at the
    University police station for staging a road blockade to press their demand that
    an under-construction building at Gujarat University's law department be named
    after Dr B R Ambedkar.



    The First Information Report was filed under sections 143
    (unlawful assembly) and 147 (rioting) of the Indian Penal Code, as well as
    sections of the Gujarat Police Act.



    During the course of the trial, one of the defendants died.



    Jignesh Mevani, a prominent Dalit leader, was elected to the
    Assembly as an independent with the support of Congress in 2017.



    He was later appointed working president of the party's
    Gujarat unit.