Assam: FIR against 10 for poem on citizenship issue

Assam police registered an FIR against 10 people - most are poets and activists who write in an informal dialect called the Miya dialect - after a complaint was received about a poem on citizenship issues in the state.

The poem was written by Kazi Sharowar Hussein and the 10 were arrested after a complaint from one Pranabjit Doloi according to a report published in The Indian Express.

Dharmendra Kr Das, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Guwahati Central, said that an FIR has been registered but no arrests have been made yet.

Deepak Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Guwahati, said in the report that the poets and activists were booked under Sections 120b, 153a, 295a and 188 of the IPC, read with section 66 of the IT Act.

Doloi's complaint said, “The accused person’s intention is to depict a picture of Assamese people as xenophobic in the eyes of the whole world, which [is] a serious threat to the Assamese people, as well as, towards the national security and harmonious social atmosphere. The real intention of this poem is to motivate and provoke their community against the system.

Activist Abdul Kalam Azad, in his reaction, asked if people don't have the right to write a poem on citizens being marked as doubtful voters or people being sent to detention camps.