Guwahati, January 11 (IANS): As protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 continued in Assam, a group of agitators vandalised a BJP office near here, police said on Friday.
The agitators belonging to Oikya Sena Asom on Thursday night vandalised the office in Palashbari area.
The police said the protesters set fire to the effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, and also blocked the national highway shouting slogans against the BJP-led NDA government.
Hiren Gohain, two others get interim bail
The Gauhati High Court on Friday granted interim bail to renowned intellectual Hiren Gohain, activist Akhil Gogoi and journalist Manjit Mahanta, against whom a case of sedition was registered by police.
The court has asked the police to submit the case diary on the next hearing on January 22.
The police registered a case of sedition against the three and some others who delivered speeches at a meeting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 on January 7.
'Ready to go to jail': Gogoi says he may violate curfew
Meanwhile according to a PTI report, Senior Congress leader and former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday said he would break the prohibitory order and court arrest if the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was not withdrawn by the Centre.
By prohibiting all sorts of protests, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Assam government was curtailing the democratic rights of people and running the state in an autocratic manner, he added.
"I will violate (section) 144 (of the Code of Criminal Procedure) if you (Centre) do not withdraw the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. I will lead people and shout slogans. I will go to jail -- a jail bharo (movement)," Gogoi told reporters here.
Protests get louder in M'laya
Protests against the Bill got louder in Meghalaya on Friday with three pressure groups burning the effigies of the NDA government and the legislation.
In Shillong, activists of the Federation of Khasi Jaintia and Garo People (FKJGP), Hynniewtrep National Youth Front (HNYF) and Ri-Bhoi Youth Front (RBYF) assembled at Khyndai-Lad observing the 'black flag day' besides chanting anti-Modi slogans and demanding 'Bangladeshis go back.'
Senior United Democratic Party (UDP) leaders, including former Urban Affairs Minister Paul Lyngdoh and Allantry Franklin Dkhar, the political advisor to Chief Minister Conrad Sangma attended the protest rally. "We strongly demand the Bill be scrapped immediately in the interest of the indigenous communities across northeastern states," FKJGP president Wellbirth Rani told journalists.
Noting that persecuted Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will not flee to India as Indian Christians themselves are facing persecution, Rani said, "The Bill is BJP's political agenda." Supporting the agitators, political advisor to CM Conrad Sangma, Dkhar said, the state government has been opposing the Bill from day one as it does not protect the people of the region.
