Chargesheet against Hardik and aides in sedition case

Ahmedabad

The Crime Branch of Ahmedabad Police today filed around 2700 page chargesheet with various supporting documents and statements against Patidar quota stir leader Hardik Patel and his aides in a sedition case lodged in October last year for their alleged involvement in violent agitation in the metropolitan court here.

ACP Crime Branch Rahul Patel said that in the chargesheet two of the total six accused namely Alpesh Kathiria and Amrish Patel alias Amul Patel has been declared absconders.

‘The remaining four Hardik Patel, Dinesh Bhambaniya, Chirag Patel and Ketan Patel have been made accused under section 124 A (sedition, maximum punishment Life imprisonment), 121 A (Conspiracy to wage war against the duly elected government, maximum punishment- Life imprisonment) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy). We have submitted over fourty mobile call details of their intercepted calls, related FSL reports including voice spectrography tests, statements of over 500 witnesses in the court with the chargesheet,’ He said.

The ACP said that it has been mentioned in the chargesheet that the violent agitation instigated by the accused has caused a damage to the tune of over 40 crore apart from the damage to the private property which was yet to be estimated.

The Chargesheet mentions that the violent agitation has caused a loss to the tune of Rs 34 crore to the State Transport Corporation whose over 150 buses were burnt down. The AMTS and BRTS has faced losses to the tune of Rs 4 and 3 crore owing to similar reasons. Property worth over Rs 50 lakhs of the Western Railway has also been damaged.

Mr. Patel said that hundreds of other cases lodged during the violent agitation all over the state has also been clubbed with the one in which the chargesheet was filed today.

Notalbly the chargesheet was filed today on the day when the 90 day time limit to file it was to expire.

Earlier on January 8 the crime branch of Surat police had also filed a 370 page chargesheet against Hardik (currently lodged in Lajpore central jail of Surat) in connection with yet another case of sedition for his alleged instigating suggestion to one on his supporters on October 3 last year who had threatened to commit suicide to kill 2 or 5 policemen rather than killing self. In that case sections 124-A (sedition), 115 (abatement of offense) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the IPC were slapped against the Patidar leader.

Chirag, Dinesh and Ketan are lodged in Sabarmati jail here.

– DeshGujarat