Social activist Medha Patkar. (File |EPS)

BHOPAL: Fasting Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar now stands arrested by the Madhya Pradesh police in four cases, including a recent case pertaining to the alleged kidnapping of revenue department staff in Dhar district in the state.

Presently lodged at the Dhar district jail (350 km from Bhopal), Patkar was arrested by the district police on Wednesday evening, hours after she was discharged from the Bombay Hospital in Indore.

She was booked under Section 151 (r/w Sections 107, 116) of the CrPc for possible breach of peace as she wanted to go back to the venue of her indefinite fast for the Sardar Sarovar dam displaced families in Chikilda village of Dhar district.

Since then Patkar has been lodged at the district jail, where she has been formally arrested by the Dhar police now in three more cases, including two previous cases of assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of duty (Section 353 of IPC) and a case pertaining to the attempted kidnapping of
revenue department staff at the venue of fast in Chikilda village on August 1.

The kidnapping case pertains to NBA activists allegedly taking revenue department staff, including nayab tehsildar Kamal Mandeliya, forcefully from Batgaon village to Chikilda on August 1.  Once taken to the venue of Patkar’s indefinite fast, the NBA activists snatched from the revenue department staff, government files and handed it over to Patkar.

“Medha Patkar has now been formally arrested in four cases, including a case lodged under Section 365 (kidnapping or abduction),” said MP Police IG (Law and Order) Makarand Deuskar in Bhopal on Friday.
In Dhar, meanwhile, Patkar couldn’t be produced before the judicial magistrate first class (JMFC-Kukshi) court, due to technical problems such as failure to establish video conferencing facility between the Dhar district jail and JMFC-Kukshi court.

“The court has adjourned the hearing for Saturday in the cases in which she has been arrested,” Dhar district superintendent of police Virendra Singh said. Also, Patkar refused to fill the bail bond in the case of possible breach of peace in which she was arrested on Wednesday.

The bond entails a personal surety of Rs 10,000, besides an undertaking by Patkar not to go to the Sardar Sarovar dam submergence zone site where she was fasting in Chikilda since July 27.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2017/aug/12/medha-patkar-formally-arrested-in-four-cases-including-kidnap-1641951.html