Photo Courtesy: India Today Group
Guwahati: The Assam government slapped indigenous rights activist Pranab Doley with the National Security Act (NSA) on July 30. This move came one day after a district court granted him bail. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh called the action a blatant misuse of preventive detention laws. He claimed the state is weaponizing extraordinary laws to silence dissent.
Doley faces detention in the Golaghat District Jail under Section 3(2) of the 1980 Act. Authorities arrested him originally on July 12 in Guwahati. He was linked to a June protest against a five-star hotel project near the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Kaziranga National Park. Local residents in Golaghat district have fought this project since 2022. They claim the state forcibly took their land at Ingle Pathar in Hatikhuli to hand it over to a hospitality company.
Ramesh described the state's case as built on vague and speculative allegations. Officials specifically cited suspicious foreign transactions from doubtful sources as justification for the hold. These accusations surfaced despite a July 29 session court order favoring the activist. In that ruling, the court noted: "where ecological preservation intersects with indigenous survival, criminal law cannot be used to suppress legitimate local anxieties."
Jorhat MP and state Congress president Gaurav Gogoi also slammed the move. He argues it proves the government holds a deep intolerance for dissent. Congress leaders claim this matches a wider pattern seen in other BJP-led states. The party insists the administration used the NSA specifically to bypass the judicial bail order, disregarding repeated warnings from the Supreme Court and high courts.
Comments