Gauhati HC rejects anti-CAA activist Akhil Gogoi's bail plea

Gauhati High Court on Thursday rejected the bail application of anti-CAA activist in Assam Akhil Gogoi after the National Investigation Agency (NIA), in its chargesheets, alleged that Gogoi had sent several members of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), the organisation he leads, to illegal camps run by CPI(Maoist) to receive training in handling arms and explosives in 2009.

Akhil is in jail since he was arrested on December 12, 2019, in Jorhat after the anti-CAA agitation turned violent in Guwahati and some other parts of Assam. The case was subsequently handed over to the NIA.

The agency charged him of sedition for his role in the agitation in which five people died in police firing while vehicles were set on fire and public properties damaged by the angry agitators. This brought the state to a grinding halt for more than a week.

Akhil's lawyer, Kamal Gogoi told reporters in Guwahati that a division bench of justice Kalyan Rai Surana and Justice Ajit Borthakur rejected the bail application after hearings and going through several documents filed by both the parties, including the NIA chargesheets.

The high court in its order said: "Materials collected, including the statement of witnesses recorded during the investigation, reveal that the petitioner (Gogoi) herein was instrumental in sending around 15 members of KMSS in batches of five each for training to camps run by CPI(Maoist), where they were trained, amongst others, in their ideology, to handle arms, explosives, etc., and in tactics of mass mobilisation to carry out seditious activities in the garb of protest activities.”

The court observed that the materials furnished by the NIA prima facie showed that Akhil had not only led the protests but had provoked people to join him and that upon directions issued by the appellant, the supplies essential to the life of the community of the country was disrupted in the state.

The NIA chargesheets also referred to the statements of witnesses, video footages as well as the transcription of public speeches and intercepted phone calls to project that Gogoi and others had conspired and coordinated to their common intention of committing seditious activities behind the garb of protests, to strike terror in a section of people by paralyzing government machinery causing economic blockade, causing enmity between groups, disruption of public peace and widespread disharmony, said the court order.

Akhil's lawyer said they would soon move the Supreme Court with a bail application. KMSS denied the allegations levelled by the NIA and called it a ploy of BJP-led government to put him behind bars before the Assembly elections.

Akhil has been vocal against the BJP-led government, both at the Centre and in Assam. He led the anti-CAA agitation saying that the CAA would allow two crores post-1971 Hindu migrants from Bangladesh to get Indian citizenship and thereby reduce the indigenous people in Assam into minorities.

Akhil is also being projected as a leader of Raijor Dal, a newly floated regional party, mostly led by leaders of KMSS. The party is planning to contest the Assembly election slated in April-May with a target to garner the anti-CAA votes against the BJP and its allies.