'SIT to probe violent incidents involving Cong leaders'

The Assam government will constitute an SIT to probe incidents of violence at the state secretariat area and Srimanta Sankardeva Kalakshetra, in which Youth Congress president and an NSUI activist were allegedly involved, state minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Tuesday.

The SIT will be headed by deputy inspector general (CID) Mridulananda Sarmah and the state government will also urge the Centre to depute an officer either from the CBI or the NIA for six months to help in the investigations, he said.

"We have evidence of Assam Youth Congress president Kamrul Islam Choudhury being involved in the attack at the state secretariat in Dispur on GS Road," Sarma said, showing a photograph of the incident that happened on December 11.

The state finance and health minister alleged that Choudhury had set ablaze the dais built for Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Guwahati.

Abe's visit was later cancelled due to the protests.

"The attack on the state secretariat was a big conspiracy, which we want the CBI to investigate and we will meet Union home minister Amit Shah soon regarding this," Sarma said.

Without naming, he said the government has evidence that a leading academician working at a central educational institution was monitoring the "entire exercise".

In the other incident that happened at Kalakashetra in the Panjabari area, there is evidence of an NSUI leader being involved, Sarma said.

NSUI is the students' wing of the Congress.

"I want to make one thing very clear that these two incidents are different from the democratic protests by the AASU and the students of colleges and universities. These incidents of violence were carried out to put the blame on AASU, rather than the state government," he said.

He further appealed to the state government employees, who have announced cease work on Wednesday, to engage in democratic protests, but not involve themselves in "anti- social" movements or agitations called by political parties.

The minister also announced that the government would not resort to pay cut for the cease work but it will be adjusted against employees' casual leaves.

He further appealed to government doctors and teachers not to engage in any kind of protest during duty hours.