Assam Congress MLA arrested for ‘provocative’ remark: Police

Congress MLA Sherman Ali Ahmed was arrested on the cost of sedition over his “provocative” remarks on the eviction drive in Assam‘s Darrang district, police mentioned on Sunday.

Ahmed was detained from his MLA quarter in Dispur on Saturday and brought to the Panbazar police station for interrogation earlier than being arrested, they mentioned.

He’s prone to be produced on the court docket throughout the day, a police officer mentioned.

A case beneath IPC part 124A (sedition) was filed towards him, he mentioned.

A number of organisations, together with the All Assam College students’ Union (AASU) and the BJP’s youth wing BJYM, filed police complaints towards the legislator over his remarks.

The state Congress had additionally issued him a discover for his “communally provocative” statements forward of the bypolls within the state, and sought a reply inside three days.

Ahmed had made the remarks whereas reacting to assertions by some leaders of the BJP-led ruling alliance that the alleged encroachers in Sipajhar space of Darrang district “had killed” eight individuals in 1983 throughout the six-year-long Assam agitation.

Ahmed had allegedly mentioned that the eight individuals who died within the 1983 agitation had been “not martyrs, however killers”, as they had been concerned in slaughtering individuals from the minority group of the Sipajhar space the place Gorukhuti is situated.

He had purportedly mentioned that “the assault” on the eight individuals was an act of “self defence” by the Muslim inhabitants of that space.

In its discover, the Congress mentioned, “As a lawmaker, your communally provocative feedback in media, gnawing at previous wounds of the previous incidents of Assam Agitation when individuals of Assam throughout communities had suffered, is completely insensitive and uncalled for.”

The state’s ruling alliance companion, Asom Gana Parishad, born out of the Assam agitation, had organised protests at varied locations, together with Dibrugarh, Barpeta, Mangaldoi, Dhemaji, Tezpur, Biswanath, Nalbari, Bongaigaon, Majuli and Morigaon, and burnt effigies of the Congress MLA.

Two individuals had been killed in police firing throughout an eviction drive in Darrang final month amid huge protests. Over 20 individuals had been injured within the melee.