Jailed farmer leader and MLA, Akhil Gogoi, who was out on a two-day parole on June 26 claimed that Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is “putting tremendous pressure” on the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to keep him behind the bars.
Gogoi on June 26 visited his ailing mother at Selenghat village in Jorhat district and told reporters that CM Sarma is trying his best to keep Gogoi behind the bars.
“My appeal to the chief minister is that he should not do Uttar Pradesh-type of politics here but ensure that the norms of traditional democracy are sustained. The politics based on democratic principles in Assam should not be turned into a communal, fascist one,” Gogoi said.
The Raijor Dal president, who was elected as an Independent legislator representing Sivasagar in the recently-held Assam assembly elections, said that if Sarma believes in democracy, the cabinet should have taken a decision for his release after he was elected to the assembly.
Akhil Gogoi was arrested on December 12, 2019, from Jorhat at the peak of the anti-CAA protests in the state as a “preventive measure” in view of the deteriorating law and order situation. The case was later handed over to the NIA.
NIA special judge Pranjal Das, after hearing a petition requesting permission to visit his family members in Guwahati and Jorhat and the people of Sivasagar constituency, had granted him parole for 48 hours on June 25 afternoon.
The court allowed Gogoi to visit only his ailing mother in Jorhat and his son in Guwahati, but asked him not to meet the people of his constituency due to the prevailing pandemic situation.
