Assam Congress chief appears before police after summons related to Rahul’s yatra

This is in relation to a suo moto case registered by the Jorhat police on January 18 against the yatra for allegedly deviating from its permitted route in the district.

On Wednesday, he reported to the police station at 11 am accompanied by other state Congress leaders, and his supporters. He left the police station after three hours and said he had been asked to report there again on February 12.

Speaking to reporters after leaving the police station, he said he would comply with the police’s directions and that the Assam Congress would simultaneously continue with its preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

“The BJP seeks that the Congress party remains busy with police stations. We will follow the law, they (the police) have called me again on the 12th (February), I will come. We all have duties. Some will contest the elections, some will campaign…We have to fight the legal battle as well as the Lok Sabha elections, which will be conducted in 100 days. We will fulfil our duties there as well…They may lock me up, but the APCC will not stop. When Gandhi ji and Jawaharlal Nehru ji were in jail, the freedom struggle continued. I am not such a big man. There are many leaders in our party,” he said.

The complaint against which the relevant case had been registered alleged that “one K B Byju, along with unknown others, instigated and led the crowd to take the Gar Ali Road and (they) damaged the barricades which were put for the management of traffic and also assaulted on-duty police personnel.”

The notice issued to Borah states: “There are reasonable grounds to question you to ascertain facts and circumstances from you, in relation to the present investigation.”

This is one of the two cases that were registered against the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Assam. The other is in relation to the scuffle that ensued on January 23 as participants tried to push through barricades to enter Guwahati city. The case has been transferred to the CID.

Borah had been injured in the scuffle. He had also been injured two days before that in Sonitpur district when he had confronted a group of men with BJP flags attempting to attack some vehicles that were part of the yatra convoy.