News Analysis India

Tag: Kokrajhar

  • Jignesh Mevani completes legal formalities in Kokrajhar, to leave for Gujarat 

    By PTI

    KOKRAJHAR: Gujarat’s Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani, on Saturday completed pending bail formalities at the Kokrajhar Court and is slated to return to his home state after travelling to Guwahati, where he will be meeting Congress leaders who supported demands that he be released.

    Mevani, an independent MLA from Gujarat, told reporters here after completing the formalities that it was “shameful that false cases were filed” against him in the land of Srimanta Sankardeva, a revered Vaishnavite saint.

    ALSO READ | My arrest was a conspiracy: Jignesh Mevani

    Mevani was granted bail by the Kokrajhar court earlier on Monday in a case related to a tweet on Prime Minister Narendra Modi but was rearrested immediately afterwards and taken to Barpeta based on allegations by a woman police officer that he assaulted and molested her while he was being escorted by a police posse.

    After being given bail by the Barpeta district judge on Friday, who pulled up Assam police for registering a “false FIR” in the alleged assault case, Mewani came to Kokrajhar earlier this morning to complete the original bail fromalities.

    He also took the permission of the court to leave the town, as one of his bail conditions was to stay within the limits of the court’s jurisdiction.

    “All the procedures related to the Kokrajhar bail order has been completed and Mevani will go to Guwahati before leaving for Gujarat,” his lawyer said.

    “It was entirely a conspiracy to harass me and to use a woman official for the purpose (which) reflects their cowardice and is against the culture of the state,” Mewani said.

    Alleging that the BJP leadership was behind his arrest, he asked, “Why will the Assam police suddenly arrest me, register cases, ask for remand, vehemently oppose the bail application?” “It is because they have got instructions from their political bosses’, the Dalit leader alleged.

  • Three dacoits shot dead by police after bank robbery foiled in Assam’s Kokrajhar district

    By Express News Service

    GUWAHATI: Continuing with their operations against criminals, the Assam Police gunned down three dacoits in a pre-dawn encounter on Sunday.

    The incident occurred in western Assam’s Kokrajhar. Three other dacoits managed to escape.

    “Prevention trumps a cure. Our underlying mantra…Upon being intercepted, the dacoits opened fire on police. In retaliatory fire by police, 3 dacoits from nearby districts were injured & later succumbed,” the state’s Director-General of Police Bhaskarjyoti Mahanta tweeted.

    He said vehicles, tools, gas cutters, two pistols along with oxygen cylinders were recovered.

    The six-member gang of dacoits had come to loot the Allahabad Bank branch but the police got a whiff of it and arrived at the spot.

    On seeing the cops, the dacoits fled the scene in two vehicles, including a two-wheeler. A hot chase ensued an encounter at a nearby place in which three dacoits sustained grievous injuries. They succumbed to their wounds later.

    The bodies were kept at a local hospital for autopsy. The police said they were trying to trace the three other dacoits who managed to flee.

    Reacting to the incident, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said Assam would be made crime-free.

    “We have to make Assam crime-free. Incidents of rape, murder, theft have to come to a stop. To ensure it, we have worked hard and we will work relentlessly,” Sarma told journalists.

    Since he donned the CM’s mantle on May 10 this year, the Assam Police have shot dead 20 criminals. Thirty others sustained gunshot wounds.