Youth Congress chief Srinivas appears before Assam Police in harassment case

Dutta, who had been Assam Youth Congress president, was expelled from the Congress party days after she accused Srinivas of “sexism” and “harassment”.

Srinivas arrived in Guwahati at around 9.30 on Monday morning and was greeted at the airport by senior Assam Congress leaders such as MP Abdul Khaleque, Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Debabrata Saikia and Assam Pradesh Congress Committee vice-president Rakibul Hussain. They escorted him to an all-women police station in the city’s Panbazar.

After that, he went to the CID office where he spent about an hour.

“The matter is in the Supreme Court. We have faith in the judiciary. I have come here on the basis of the court’s direction. I have given my statement before the police,” he said.

On May 17, Srinivas had secured interim anticipatory bail from the Supreme Court. While granting him protection from arrest, the apex court had directed him to cooperate with the Assam Police’s investigation.

Prior to his arrival in the state, prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC had been issued in Guwahati, prohibiting the assembly of more than five people as well as processions and the shouting of slogans. In an order issued by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Admin) Guwahati, Imdad Ali, this had been done in anticipation of “persons or organisation/association planning to carry out agitation/ demonstration/shouting of slogans”.

In Upper Assam’s Sivasagar, the Assam Youth Congress was also given a legal notice by the local police on Sunday evening, threatening “strict legal action” if they did not withdraw their “programme” of going to Guwahati on Monday. The Sivasagar police in their notice stated that they had received information that the Sivasagar unit was planning to go to Guwahati to agitate, which had “every likelihood of disturbance to the community at large, and even breach of security, law and order”.

Congress leader Debabrata Saikia referred to this as “autocratic and fascist”.

“Youth Congress workers in different places were called to police stations and told that they don’t need to come to Guwahati. Srinivas is a national leader and the workers of the organisation he leads had wanted to come see him. There was no question of dharnas. But by applying 144 here and getting workers to sign bonds in police stations, the government didn’t even allow that,” he said.

The FIR against Srinivas has been registered under sections 509 (using words, gestures or acts intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 294 (obscene acts and songs to the annoyance of others), 341 (wrongful restraint), 352 (assault or use of criminal force to any person), 354/354A(iv) (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), Section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC and section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act.