Assam: Congress leader Sherman Ali Ahmed detained in Guwahati

Guwahati: Crime branch, Guwahati City police led by ASP Himangshu Das, picked up Congress MLA Sherman Ali Ahmed from MLA Hostel in Assam’s main city Guwahati at around 6.30 pm on Saturday.

The detention comes a day after Congress served a show-cause notice to the Baghbor MLA, who justified the killing of eight people in Darrang district around 40 years ago.

Sherman Ali Ahmed is currently at the Panbazar police station, where senior police officials continued to grill him regarding his provocative statement in connection with the Gorukhuti eviction case.

A senior police official said Ahmed may be handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for further investigation. He will be taken to Mahendra Mohan Choudhury Hospital for a health checkup on Saturday night.

He is likely to be produced before the court of the chief judicial magistrate on Sunday.

Altogether 28 FIRs have been filed against Ahmed in various police stations, including Dispur and Hatigaon police stations, for his provocative statement against martyrs of Assam Agitation. Ahmed represents the Baghbar constituency.

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Ahmed claimed that the eight people who died during the 1983 agitation were not martyrs but killers, as they were involved in slaughtering many others. The recent eviction drive at Gorukhuti in Darrang district had turned violent, leaving at least two persons dead n police firing and several others injured in clashes.

The area was where police shot and killed two persons, one of them a minor, during an eviction drive on September 23.

Ahmed’s statement has triggered off a widespread protest across the state.
Before assembly elections, Ahmed had created controversy by demanding that a ‘Miya Museum’ be set up in the precincts of the Srimanta Kalakshetra after a standing committee of Assam Legislative Assembly proposed the setting up of a ‘Char-Chapori’ (riverine) Museum.

The ‘Miya Museum’, Ahmed had said, would exhibit the culture and traditions of the Bengali Muslims of erstwhile East Bengal settled in the riverine areas of lower and central Assam.