GANDHINAGAR : A self-immolation bid by a pro-reservation Patel youth to press the demand for immediate release of the detained Patel leaders, was foiled by the police here on Friday.
Nirav Patel, the district convenor of the “Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti” (PAAS) Mahisagar district in central Gujarat, had issued a threat last month that he would immolate himself in front of the state secretariat, here if the arrested PAAS convenor Hardik Patel and other pro-quota leaders were not released by January 30.
As the government failed to make any move so far to release any of the arrested Patel leaders, except Nilesh Ervadiya, who secured bail from court on Thursday, Nirav reached gate number one of the state secretariat on Friday to carry out his threat of self-immolation.
But the police, who were present in large numbers on being tipped about the self-immolation bid, pounced on Nirav and took him into preventive custody as soon as he poured kerosene on himself. Along with Nirav, about a dozen other Patel leaders, including a woman activist, Reshma Patel, were also taken into preventive custody.
More than a dozen PAAS leaders, including the 22-year old convenor Hardik, are behind bars for more than four months now facing sedition and such other serious charges.
Nilesh was the first among those facing sedition charges to secure bail from a sessions court in Ahmedabad on Thursday on condition that he would totally dissociate himself from the reservation agitation. However, soon after his release, he said he would not “ditch” his community and would join in the efforts to get other PAAS leaders released.
Reshma Patel had earlier this month broken her indefinite fast after about three weeks only on an assurance from some of the Patidar religious leaders that the state government had promised to initiate steps for the early release of the detained leaders and resolve the reservation dispute through negotiations with the PAAS leaders.
