Dalit campaigner threatens stir over attack on RTI activist

Dalit rights campaigner Jignesh Mevani has alleged that former BJP MP Dinu Solanki was behind the attack on RTI activist Mahesh Makwana, and threatened to launch a stir if the Gujarat government does not take stern action in the case.

According to Mevani, 36-year-old Makwana was attacked by accomplices of Solanki and his nephew Shiva Solnaki at Kodinar town of Gir-Somnath district on December 12. Following this, Makwana has been undergoing treatment at Rajkot civil hospital for broken limbs, he said. Both Solanki and Shiva were charge-sheeted by the CBI in connection with the murder of another Kodinar-based RTI activist Amit Jethwa in 2010, and they are now out on bail.

“Just like Jethwa, Makwana had filed several RTI queries to expose the illegal mining inside the forest area by Solanki and Shiva. Out of grudge, Makwana was brutally thrashed by some men sent by the duo,” Mevani alleged at a press conference here on Monday evening.