IANS
Ahmedabad, Jun 29: Monday June 29 could well be termed as day of arrests. These columns already reported the arrests of two high-profile politicians. While Raj Thackeray from Mumbai was the first one to have been arrested, Karnataka BJP MLA Renukacharya too was arrested later. Incidentally both were arrested for their inflammatory speeches provoking communal divide. Now there is one more arrest news. A Gujarat MLA has been arrested, again almost for the similar case, in connection with the now infamous Gujarat Riots of 2002.
Gujarat's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Fatehsinh Chauhan was arrested Monday for his alleged involvement in the 2002 riots in the state's Rajgarh town.
The arrest was ordered by the Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT). The legislator from Rajgarh was evading arrest for a long time, police said.
Chauhan would be presented before a local court in Ahmedabad later in the evening.
More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the riots that followed the burning of the S-6 sleeper coach of Sabarmati Express at the Godhra station on July 27, 2002, in which 59 passengers were burnt to death.
The legislator has also been reprimanded by the Election Commission for his remarks against Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in Rajgarh during the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.