Assam Congress MP Abdul Khaleque on Wednesday lodged an FIR against Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma over his recent speech in Morigaon related to the violent eviction drive in Darrang district of Assam in which 2 people died and several others were injured three months back.
In the FIR, Mr Khaleque has accused the Assam chief minister of becoming the "chief violator of the Constitution & the rule of law" and destroying the social fabric of Assam. The FIR has been lodged at the Dispur Police station for his speech in Morigaon where he termed the Gorukhuti incident as an act of violation of the Constitution.
"Betraying his oath on the Constitution, the Hon'ble Chief Minister Dr. Sarma has maliciously given a communal colour to what was supposed to be an executive exercise. The Gorukhuti eviction saw the brutal killings of Moinul Hoque and Sheikh Farid. Houses of the residents of Gorukhuti were burnt to the ground. By calling such horrendous acts as revenge, Sri Himanta Biswa Sarma has not only justified the killings and arson committed there, the legality of which is sub-judice before the Hon'ble Gauhati High Court, but he has gone far ahead and has communalised the whole exercise - the target of which was the Muslim population living there," Mr Khaleque said in the FIR.
Mr Khaleque referred to a part of the chief minister's speech in Morigaon district on December 10, on the occasion of Shahid Divas (Martyrs' Day), where he purportedly described the Gorukhuti eviction exercise as an "act of revenge" for the incidents of 1983 when eight Assamese youths were killed in February 1983 during the Assam Agitation (1979-1985) in Chalkhowa in Darrang district.
"The Gorukhuti land belonged to the Assamese people. That there was a 4,000-year-old Shiva temple there, that its priest was murdered...none of this was written about by the national and international media when they covered the eviction. In 1983, ... young Assamese boys were murdered in Darrang district. Today, Assam is bound to take some degree of revenge for those deaths," the chief minister had reportedly said at the event.
The FIR further stated, "The rampant human rights violations at Gorukhuti were preceded by multiple utterances of the Hon'ble Chief Minister targeted towards the particular community. The hate created by the Hon'ble Chief Minister's constant denigration of the Muslim community manifested itself in the egregious acts of a civilian, a government-hired photographer, who stomped on Moinul Hoque's body while he was on his last breath, having been gunned down by the police."
"Through such malignant and provocative utterances, the Hon'ble Chief Minister is intending to cause disharmony or feelings of enmity. hatred or ill- will towards the Muslim population of Assam," it added.
Mr Khaleque stated, "The instances of religious enmity in India are numerous and with every passing day, the incidents of communal flare-ups are on the rise. The Chief Minister of a state has the constitutional obligation to protect its citizens irrespective of caste, creed, or religion. Instead of doing so and preserving the social fabric of our beloved state, the Hon'ble Chief Minister is aggravating the situation through his vindictive hate-mongering,".
Meanwhile, Guwahati police sources confirmed to NDTV the receipt of the complaint but it added that the complaint is being verified and that it will be decided after that whether to register the complaint as an FIR or not.
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