BJP whiff in activist attack.

Calcutta Telegraph; Sunday , June 26 , 2011,

Ahmedabad, June 25: The family of a Gujarat RTI activist, who was stabbed by a gang yesterday, has alleged that a former BJP minister was behind the attack.

Bhagu Devani was pulled out of his car by six men and stabbed in the leg near his Porbandar home.

The 72-year-old had filed a case against a hotel that Babu Bokharia, the former MLA of Porbandar, had built in violation of coastal regulations.

Bokharia also constructed an eight-storey residential building in Porbandar defying civic regulations. The structure should not have had more than four storeys, the municipal corporation had ruled, and ordered the demolition of the top four floors.

Bokharia’s business associates Suresh Thanki and Vikram Odedara also have BJP links. Thanki is a party official and Odedara is a former BJP vice-president of the Porbandar taluka.

The police have arrested four persons so far and one of them is Lakhu, the younger brother of Vikram Odedara. The other three are Lakhu’s associates.

This is not the first time that suspicion has fallen on BJP leaders in a case of attack on a rights activist. Last June, activist Amit Jethwa was shot dead in front of Gujarat High Court.

Shiv Solanki, the nephew of Junagadh BJP MP Dinu Solanki, was arrested in the case. Jethwa had filed several PILs against illegal mining near the Gir sanctuary in which Solanki is believed to be involved.

Devani’s son Sameer today said that the family had requested the police to name Bokharia as an accused. “My father has filed RTI applications against him and is fighting a court case against the illegal construction of the hotel and the residential complex. So we have reason to believe that the former minister is behind the attack.”

The police said they had not yet found anything linking Bokharia to the attack.

Seven years ago, Devani had filed a petition in Gujarat High Court in connection with a Rs 54-crore limestone theft. Bokharia was arrested in the case in response to Devani’s plea.

Bokharia called the RTI activist a “blackmailer”. In the FIR, Devani had mentioned unidentified assailants “but after the state Congress president Arjun Modhwadia visited him in the hospital, he chose to file an affidavit, naming me as the main accused”, Bokharia said.