Akhil Gogoi

RTI Activist

Assam

HRDA has issued an urgent appeal to the National Human Rights Commission of India on September 21 regarding the arrest of peasant leader and RTI activist, Mr. Akhil Gogoi, president of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), from the office of KMSS in Golaghat on September 13, 2017 by the Dibrugarh police on false charges of sedition. Mr. Gogoi is the president of KMSS in Assam.

He has been criticising the BJP-led government’s decision on several policies which includes amendment to the Citizenship Act, renaming of 22 government colleges after Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideologue Deendayal Upadhaya, eviction drive in the periphery of Kaziranga National Park and other forest areas in Assam.

On October 12, 2016, Mr. Gogoi was addressing a public meeting in Moran. In his speech, he was critical of various policy decisions of the BJP government in Assam. After this speech, a First Information Report (FIR) was lodged at the Moran Police Station by the police against him for fuelling anti-national activities with case number 180/17. Based on the complaint, the Dibrugarh police arrested him from the Golaghat office of KMSS in the evening of September 13, 2017 when he was back from a public rally in Jorhat.

His arrest was aired in the local media where a video showed that he was dragged by the police to the police vehicle and he was not even allowed to wear a shirt. He was brought to the police station in a lungi and a vest.

The charges against him are under Sections 124 (A), (Sedition), 120-B (Criminal Conspiracy), 121 (waging or attempting to wage war against the GOI), 109 (abetment of an offence), 153 (causing communal disharmony) and 153-A (hate speech) of the Indian Penal Code. Mr Gogoi’s arrest triggered protests across the state with the blockade of National Highway 39 in the Golaghat district. An effigy of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal was burnt. The protesters demanded his unconditional release.