Assamese activist Akhil Gogoi alleges torture in NIA custody, warns of ploy to delegitimise protests against citizenship law

Gogoi was produced in a National Investigation Agency court in the capital Guwahati at around noon. As he was being taken into the court by policemen, he complained of “prachanda atyachar”, or severe torture, in custody.

Gogoi, adviser to the peasants’ body Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, had been at the forefront of protests against the citizenship law in eastern Assam until he was arrested from Jorhat on December 12. Two days later, the case was handed over to the NIA, which booked him on charges including sedition, criminal conspiracy, and unlawful association.

“We argued that Gogoi should be sent in normal judicial custody. But the court rejected our plea,” his lawyer Kishor Kalita said. The court extended Gogoi’s NIA custody by 10 days.

Speaking to the media about Gogoi’s arrest, GP Singh, additional director general of police, claimed that they had gathered substantial evidence against the activist and his associates before filing the case. “They have been working in close coordination with Maoist elements to spread the Maoist functioning in Assam. We also had inputs that they were behind the conspiracy that led to the recent violence in Assam,” Singh said.

At least five people have been killed in Assam during the protests against the law, which grants Indian citizenship to non-Muslim undocumented immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

Speaking to Newslaundry at the NIA court, Gogoi denied having any “Maoist links”. He described the police’s allegations as “totally false”. “I want to make it clear: I have never been with the Maoists in the past, I am not with them now, and will never be with them in the future.” 

About the police’s allegation that he was behind the violence that rocked the state on December 11 and 12 during protests against the citizenship law, Gogoi said he was in Sivasagar, Jorhat, Dibrugarh, and Tinsukia at that time. But every protest that he participated in, he added, was held outside the deputy commissioner’s office. “I ensured the people stayed non-violent and yet protested vehemently,” Gogoi said.

Gogoi isn’t the only Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti leader to have been arrested in the last few days. The organisation’s general secretary, Dhairjya Konwar, and the president of its student wing Chatra Mukti Sangram Samiti, Bitu Sonowal, have been held as well.

Gogoi argued that the arrests were an attempt “to convert a genuine people’s uprising into a farcical movement”. They were part of a wider crackdown on progressive forces behind the protests, he added.

“They have even gone after the media that’s refusing to toe their line,” he said. “Our movement was on its way to offer the people an alternative to the current system. The government clearly doesn’t want to allow an alternative form of politics to emerge that resists the communal fascist regime.”

Gogoi’s arrest has drawn widespread condemnation. Hiren Gohain, an Assamese public intellectual who was at the court to show his solidarity, criticised the government for the arrest.

“I don’t know what secret information they have, but as far as my knowledge goes, he has given a call to the people of Assam to rally against the state’s conspiracy against the people of Assam. It is the state that is more guilty of terror than Akhil Gogoi,” Gohain said.

Such support had strengthened his resolve to continue his fight against the citizenship law, Gogoi said. On the future of the movement against the law, the leader warned against state-backed elements trying to disturb its progression.

“There are two possible directions at the moment: either it can flourish into a genuine people’s movement or it can turn into a state-sponsored movement. I have only one request to the people: please do not be part of the state-sponsored movement.”