Dungarpur violence: BTM moves HC for quashing of FIRs against party leaders, workers

The court asked additional advocate general to submit the government’s stand on the petition by October 16 and slated the next hearing of it the same day. Appearing for the BTP, advocate Moti Singh Rajpurohit prayed for quashing the multiples FIRs lodged against the party’s members terming them to be the state government's aim to settle political scores and damage the party.

The Rajasthan High court on Monday sought the state government’s stand on a plea by Bhartiya Tribal Party seeking annulment of FIRs lodged against hundreds of party leaders and workers for their alleged role in last week’s riots and arson in Dungarpur and Udaipur. Violence erupted across districts on Thursday when the candidates of teachers’ recruitment examination-2018 blocked Udaipur-Ahmedabad highway, pelted stones at police, damaged properties and torched vehicles demanding the filling of 1,167 general vacant posts with scheduled tribe (ST) candidates.

The violence which erupted on Thursday and continued on Friday with stray incidents occurring even on Saturday caused massive destruction of public and private properties. On a plea by the BTP, Justice Vineet Kumar Mathur issued notices to the state government, Department of Home, the inspector general of police of Udaipur range and the SPs Udaipur and Dungarpur districts besides the SHOs of Bichhiwara, Sadar, Dowara in Dungarpur and Kherwara in Udaipur. The court asked additional advocate general to submit the government’s stand on the petition by October 16 and slated the next hearing of it the same day.

Appearing for the BTP, advocate Moti Singh Rajpurohit prayed for quashing the multiples FIRs lodged against the party’s members terming them to be the state government's aim to settle political scores and damage the party. In the petition, Rajpurohit further said all the BTP members are innocent as neither they nor the party had any agenda or plan to be part of the violence. They are being targeted out of political vendetta, he said. The petition said police have already filed FIRs against those accused of perpetrating violence and arrested over 200 persons. “Subsequently, FIRs against the BTP members too were registered, falsely implicating them of involvement in the violence,” said the petition.

The BTP members against whom FIRs have been filed included the party’s MP/MLA candidates, district presidents, working committee members, workers from tahsil, block and mandals, sarpanches and ex-sarpanches, ward members and members of the Vidhyarthi Morcah, the petition said. According to Rajpurohit, a total of 36 FIRs have been registered, of which four named 800 persons while 32 others have been registered against 4,000 unidentified persons. “Police prepared a tahsil-wise list of the BTP leaders and members from Dungarpur, Banswara and Udaipur before filing the case and have begun arresting BTP leaders and members," Purohit said in the petition, terming the move as “political targeting”. Arguing for his clients, Rajpurohit contended that the state government has been implicating innocent persons falsely by misusing the government machinery to ruin the party.

Pleading with the court for directions to the police to quash the FIRs and stop arresting BTP members, Rajpurohit also prayed for proper scanning of the video footages to ascertain if any of the BTP members were involved in the rampage..