Photo Courtesy: nenow
Guwahati: Police arrested land rights activist Pranab Doley in Guwahati on Sunday. A Dispur Police team took him into custody at his rented home in the Sundarpur area. He now sits in a holding cell at the Dispur station.
Officers booked Doley under a laundry list of charges from the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The case stems from the Bokakhat Police Station. Authorities seized his phone immediately. His supporters claim they are barred from seeing him.
Doley heads the Greater Kaziranga Land and Human Rights Protection Committee. He spent months fighting a plan to build five-star hotels near the Kaziranga National Park, a protected UNESCO site. He argues the development ruins both wildlife grazing zones and the survival of local farmers.
Twenty Adivasi families filed a separate legal challenge in the Gauhati High Court this June. They claim the state pushed them off land they have worked for generations. The petitioners state, "land cultivated by them for generations has been earmarked for the project without due process."
The group maintains the government ignored mandatory environmental and social impact rules. Officials from Bokakhat plan to transport Doley to their station soon. The arrest ignited anger among the families who fear losing their ancestral homes to the project.
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