Crime Today News
A Guwahati court on Friday granted bail to journalist Dilwar Hussain Mozumder in a second case registered against him for allegedly trespassing into a bank, The Indian Express reported.
On Wednesday, Mozumder was granted bail in a separate case. However, he was arrested again the next day in the second case against him based on a complaint by the managing director of the Assam Co-operative Apex Bank.
On Friday, the court of the chief judicial magistrate allowed the journalist’s petition for bail in the trespassing case, the newspaper quoted his lawyer AS Tapadar as saying. However, the formalities were not completed because it was granted late in the evening, he added.
“Our bailer was also ready there, but it could not be done because it got late and there was no time, so he will remain in judicial custody,” The Indian Express quoted Tapadar as saying. “If nothing unfortunate happens again, we expect that something good will happen tomorrow.”
Mozumder, a journalist with digital news outlet The CrossCurrent, had sought to ask questions to Dombaru Saikia, the managing director of the Assam Co-operative Apex Bank, regarding alleged irregularities on Tuesday.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is a director of the Assam Cooperative Apex Bank and Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Biswajit Phukan is its chairman.
Mozumder was detained by the police on Tuesday after a protest by Jatiya Yuva Shakti, the youth wing of the Assam Jatiya Parishad, against alleged financial irregularities in the bank.
He was subsequently arrested later in the day in the first case filed by a security guard at the bank, on charges of criminal intimidation and under provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act.
The chief judicial magistrate had granted Mozumder bail on Wednesday evening but he remained in the Guwahati Central Jail on Thursday. He was taken to the Pan Bazar police station at 8 pm and arrested in connection with the second case filed by the bank official.
In his complaint, Saikia claimed that the journalist had trespassed on to the first floor of the office on Tuesday and attempted to take away documents.
Mozumder fled after the bank staff raised an alarm, Saikia claimed. “During the incident, the accused disturbed the bank’s operations, threatened the employees and made caste-based derogatory remarks towards the security guard,” he alleged.
The Jatiya Yuva Shakti had organised a protest in front of the bank’s headquarters in Guwahati’s Pan Bazar area to demand a high-level inquiry and action against those responsible for the alleged financial mismanagement.
Journalists and news associations protested the arrest of Mozumder on Wednesday, calling it an attack on press freedom.
Sarma, however, questioned whether Mozumder could be called a “journalist”, saying that the state government does not formally recognise persons who work in digital news outlets as journalists.
Mozumder was not arrested in matters related to journalism, Sarma added.
The chief minister said that Mozumder should be considered a businessperson, claiming that he owns a dumper business.
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