Yashwant Sinha's judicial remand extended till June 28

HAZARIBAGH: A local court has extended the judicial remand of senior Jharkhand BJP leader Yashwant Sinha and his supporters till June 28 even as he did not move for bail today in connection with the alleged assault of a senior government official earlier this month.

Conducting the proceedings through video conferencing, Chief Judicial Magistrate R B Pal extended the judicial remand of Sinha and others till June 28.

It appears that Sinha has not accepted BJP President and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's recent appeal through party leaders Rajiv Pratap Rudi and Shahnawaz Hussain urging him to come out of the jail and participate in the state unit's next phase of agitation, which began today.

Sinha's son and newly elected Hazaribagh MP Jayant is staging a sit-in near the collectorate as part of the party's protest against deteriorating law and order situation and power crisis.

Party veteran L K Advani is scheduled to visit Hazaribagh tomorrow to call on Sinha.

Sinha and 54 of his supporters were sent to 14 days' judicial custody on June 3 after their arrest the day before for allegedly assaulting and tying up general manager of Hazaribagh branch of Jharkhand State Electricity Board, Dhanesh Jha during BJP's demonstration in protest against electricity crisis.

In the following days some more BJP activists were arrested and were remanded to judicial custody.