Crime Today News
The Assam Police on Thursday filed a first information report against journalist and YouTuber Abhisar Sharma for accusing Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of engaging in communal politics.
The Guwahati Crime Branch has filed the case against Sharma under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to acts endangering national unity and sovereignty, promoting enmity between groups and making assertions prejudicial to national integration.
The case was filed based on a complaint by Alok Baruah, a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Baruah can be seen in photographs with several state ministers such as Jayanta Malla Baruah and Pijush Hazarika, and with state BJP chief Dilip Saikia.
Baruah alleged that Sharma ridiculed and denigrated the Union government and Assam government, and thus endangered national sovereignty. He claimed that the journalist “ridiculed the principle of Ram Rajya [or the reign of the Hindu deity Ram], and openly accused the chief minister of Assam of communal politics”.
The complainant alleged that Sharma claimed “without any basis” that Sarma’s politics was based solely on Hindu-Muslim polarisation. He claimed that through such comments, the journalist was trying to provoke disorder by portraying the state as corrupt, communal and illegitimate.
A senior Guwahati Police officer told Scroll that the case was filed as Sharma “was speaking against the country and its sovereignty”.
Scroll also tried to contact Baruah to seek his comment on the case. This article will be updated if he responds.
Sharma, in the video, had alleged that the Assam chief minister, by spreading hatred on the basis of religion, was diverting people’s attention from serious matters. He had accused Sarma of running a “propaganda campaign” against Muslims and madrasas.
The case registered against Sharma came days after the Crime Branch in Guwahati on August 12 issued a summons to The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan in an FIR pertaining to an article on Operation Sindoor.
The summons came even as the Supreme Court, on the same day, had granted Varadarajan and members of the foundation running the news outlet protection from arrest in another FIR filed by the Assam Police.
The Wire also received summons for journalist Karan Thapar on Monday, said the news outlet.
This article first appeared on Scroll.in
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