Process on to withdraw non-serious cases against Patel youths: Gujarat govt

The Gujarat government on Tuesday said the process to withdraw non-serious cases against Patel youths associated with the quota stir was underway.

“We are in process of collecting information about all non-serious cases against Patel youths. A process is on to withdraw the cases after scrutiny,” said Minister for Health and spokesperson for the Gujarat government Nitin Patel.

According to Patel, no cases yet have been withdrawn by the government. On Monday, a BJP leader of Patan district in North Gujarat, K C Patel had said they (the party) were ready to withdraw 41 cases against Patel youths registered mainly for damaging property inside BJP offices and other similar non-serious offence during quota violence in August last year.

“There were some cases lodged in Patan district in this regard. Our local leader had announced that party is ready to take back those cases. But the final decision will be taken by the state government,” Patel said.

Earlier, the Gujarat government had already announced that it will withdraw 74 police cases filed against 382 Patel community members across the state during quota agitation. In total, 457 FIRs were registered in 18 different districts across Gujarat after the quota agitation.

As per the government, police have arrested 1,750 persons named in these FIRs. However, 1,736 of them received bail immediately.