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As tensions continue to grip Assam’s Sivasagar district, where local groups have claimed that indigenous identity is under threat and some have called on “all Bangladeshis” to leave within a week, the administration and police have taken precautionary measures, including issuing summons to leaders of different organisations. On Monday, Sivasagar police carried out flag marches in the town. Also, 27 leaders of local organisations were issued summons by the Court of the Chief Executive Magistrate of Sivasagar under Section 126 of the BNSS over “probable breach of peace”. The notices to these leaders, who have been part of the protests in Sivasagar over the past two weeks, state that there was information they were “involved in organising and participating in an unlawful assembly using high decibel speaker systems and attempting to evoke passions of one community against another local minority, aside from abetting the illegal closure of commercial establishments in Sivasagar town, by which act, a breach of the peace will probably be occasioned”. They were also issued a show cause notice asking them why they should not be required to enter into a bond of Rs 2.5 lakh and a surety to “keep the peace” for six months. Sivasagar SP Subhrajyoti Bora also said police have decided to continue carrying out flag marches for “the next seven, 10, 15 days”. Not just Sivasagar, many parts of Assam have been tense after a string of incidents that have resulted in inter-community tensions, particularly after the alleged gangrape of a 14-year-old girl in Nagaon district on August 22. One of the three accused, Tafazul Islam, who was arrested on August 23, died in police custody the next day. The August 22 incident led to a rise in tensions in the state, with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and other ministers calling it an “attack on the indigenous”. Flag marches and area domination exercises by police have been taking place across all districts since Sunday. On what prompted these measures, DGP G P Singh told The Indian Express , “We are prepared to face any eventuality. It is always better to err on the side of caution. The Assam Police has a long history of handling law and order situations. We are prepared to keep the people of Assam safe at all costs.” Even before the latest escalation, tensions have been brewing in Sivasagar after the alleged assault of a 17-year-old girl in the district on August 13. This incident, where the accused are local businessmen from the Marwari community, resulted in 30 different Assamese nationalist groups mobilising large protests against “non-indigenous” business owners in the town. This led to members of the town’s Marwari community kneeling to issue a “public apology” for the incident, in the presence of state minister Ranoj Pegu and others, as well as the media. These protests also led these groups to raise the demand for a law banning the sale of land in Sivasagar and other Upper Assam districts to “non-indigenous” people. Tensions flared further after the Nagaon incident, with some groups claiming the accused was “Bangladeshi” and issuing calls for “all Bangladeshis to leave Upper Assam within seven days”. Some videos from the district being circulated on Sunday even showed groups of people going to houses and telling residents that they were “informing suspected Bangladeshis” to leave the district by the end of the week. The atmosphere further vitiated on Sunday, when a video showing people being made to kneel down in the dark, beaten and shout slogans in support of some Assamese nationalist organisations was widely circulated with claims that the incident was from Nazira in Sivasagar. This prompted Sivasagar SP Subhrajyoti Bora and DC Aditya Vikram Yadav to issue a joint statement to maintain the peace. SP Bora said that a preliminary investigation into the video showed that it was not a recent clip, not from Sivasagar, and that it was shared “in an attempt to deteriorate the communal harmony in Sivasagar district”. DC Yadav said, “I want to tell the people of Sivasagar that if someone is disturbing the economic or social balance and peace, immediately inform the police…” Among leaders of local groups who got the summons notice was Basanta Gogoi, president of the All Tai Ahom Students Union. He distanced himself from the call for “Bangladeshis” to leave Upper Assam, but said the agitation to “protect the land and language rights of the indigenous” would continue. “The movement to save the indigenous started in Sivasagar with the incident in the region on August 13, and after the Nagaon incident, it became even more pressing because it made the threat to the indigenous clear. But there is no law and order situation here, there is no communal environment. It is a peaceful and democratic movement to secure indigenous rights,” he said. Srinkhal Chaliha, the leader of radical group Bir Lachit Sena, who has had several run-ins with the law previously, also received one of the summons notices. He said, “Our movement is against outsiders. Against their economic aggression… Today, all our land is occupied by Bangladeshis and outsiders.” Click here to join The Indian Express on WhatsApp and get latest news and updates None
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