By L A Adithya
The Assam Police, on Thursday, filed a first information report against journalist Abhisar Sharma, alleging that he’d posted a video on YouTube in which he blatantly criticised and put under a wrong light Assam and the Union government.
The registered FIR invokes Section 152 (Sedition), Section 196, and Section 197 of the BNS, 2023.
The complainant, Alok Baruah, a member of ABVP of RSS and a local resident of Ganeshguri, accused the journalist of targeting the Union government and the Chief Minister of Assam and spreading hatred and disaffection against the government established by law. He stated that Mr. Sharma’s comments sought to erupt communal disharmony and religion-based divisions among the people.
The claims and the FIR registered against him lacked any basis, and he was referring to an Assam judge’s statement where the judge mentioned that 3000 bighas of land were handed to a company named Mahabal Cement and had criticized it, he argued on X.
He also exclaimed and further accused Himanta Biswa Sarma of “communal politics with facts” backing and said that his politics were purely based on Hindu-Muslim polarization, which apparently went on to draw backlash from Alok Baruah. Mr. Sharma is now set to deal with this on a legal course.
Alok Baruah further went on to accuse and scrutinize the journalist of disrespecting the principle of Ram Rajya (the reign of Lord Ram) and provoking enmity between religious communities. Eminently, the Ram Rajya controversy plays the triggering point.
This case comes days after Siddarth Varadaraj and Karan Thapar from The Wire, against whom FIRs were filed under the same sections of the BNS by the Assam Police. Several eyes of press organizations have been caught pertaining to the allegations and accusations, wherein they’ve raised their voices against the punitive actions against journalists for such aforementioned reasons. The case was also met with strong condemnation from the Digipub News Foundation that it curbs fundamental rights.