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Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma Wednesday said the state police would arrest Congress leader Rahul Gandhi after Lok Sabha elections, a day after an FIR was registered against him and other Congress leaders following a confrontation between people taking part in the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra and the Assam police.
On Wednesday, Assam Director General of Police G P Singh said the case has been transferred to the state CID and a Special Investigation Team would be constituted “for a thorough and in-depth investigation”.
“We will arrest him after the Lok Sabha elections, if we do it now it will get very politicised. The SIT will do its investigation now… Yesterday there could have been a major incident going by how they had instigated the mob to break barricades. Before the Lok Sabha elections, we will not do much because we will be winning from Assam anyway and there’s no point in making too much political noise here. It’s better if the state remains peaceful,” said Sarma on the sidelines of an event on Wednesday.
Tuesday was the sixth day of the Assam leg of the ongoing yatra, which has been fraught with confrontations between the participants and the state apparatus. The yatra had been denied permission to enter Guwahati city, which it intended to do on Tuesday. When they were met with barricades and police at the road entering the city from the highway, participants broke through the obstruction and were pushed back by the security personnel. The yatra eventually continued along the highway and did not enter the city.
Later that day, the police lodged a suo motu FIR under sections of the IPC pertaining to criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly, rioting, obstruction of public way, assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharge of duty, causing harm to a public servant, and damage to property.
The FIR names “unknown” as the accused but names Rahul GandhiJitender Singh, KC Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Srinivas BV, Kanhaiyya Kumar, Gourav Gogoi, Debabrata Saikia, Bhupen Bora, Jakir Hussain Sikdar and Ramen Kumar Sarma as people who were heading the yatra as it entered Assam from Meghalaya.
“The crowd instigated, led and participated by senior INC leaders forcefully changed the course towards GS Road by breaking the barricades erected by police and assaulted police personnel performing lawful duty. Although police tried to persuade the leaders and the crowd… the leaders bluntly refused and incited the crowd with inflammatory words to break the barricades and change the route,” states the FIR.
It states that five police personnel were injured in the incident.
On Wednesday, the Congress continued with its yatra through Lower Assam districts of Barpeta ad Dhubri. “File as many cases as you can against me. The BJP-RSS can’t intimidate me,” Rahul said during a public address in Barpeta on Wednesday.dnesday.
