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Assam police arrest 2 PFI men for anti-CAA violence in Guwahati last week
Protests had raged in Guwahati for two days last week against the new citizenship law. The administration responded by deploying a massive security force, clamping curfew and suspending internet.
The Assam Police arrested two top office bearers of the Islamist organisation Popular Front of India (PFI) on Wednesday in connection with violence in Guwahati last week after the Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill.
“Aminul Hoque who is the state president of the PFI, and Mohammad Muzammil Hoque, the press secretary of the PFI, were arrested from Hatigaon in Guwahati today,” senior cabinet minister Chandra Mohan Patowary told reporters on Wednesday. “They were behind inciting the mob to become violent, burn tyres and shops.”
On Tuesday, senior cabinet minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had claimed that “urban naxals, PFI and Congress members” were behind the violence which was part of a major conspiracy to burn down the state secretariat.
Patowary also said that police are looking for two leaders of the youth Congress – its president Kamrul Islam Choudhury and Zubair Alam - who Sarma alleged in Tuesday’s press conference as the ones who played a key role in violence outside the secretariat.
Protests had raged in Guwahati and other cities in Assam for two days last week against the new citizenship law. The administration responded by deploying a massive security force, clamping curfew in Guwahati and suspending internet.
Meanwhile, Assam police officials said the total number of arrests have gone up to 329 even as more than 200 cases have been registered.
Even as demonstrations and protests continued, the state remained peaceful. The All Assam Students Union concluded the three day “Gana Satyagraha” which saw hundreds of people participating in Guwahati and other parts of the state. State government employees observed a day-long strike on Wednesday against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The state secretariat, too, wore a deserted look.
Patowary said the state government respects AASU’s democratic agitation even as he hinted that the state government may bring in a law for the protection of local languages.
