Guwahati: A day after government suspected the involvement of Popular Front of India (PFI), Assam Police on Wednesday arrested the president and the media secretary of PFI Assam unit even as ongoing three-day long ‘satyagraha’ of All Assam Students Union (Aasu) on Wednesday concluded with a large number of people courting arrest in most of the districts of Upper Assam and Guwahati.
Informing that police have arrested Aminul Islam, president of PFI Assam unit, Assam industry minister Chandra Mohan Patowary told reporters that he was arrested in connection with violence that rocked Guwahati during the protest against the Citizenship Act. Similarly, Mozammil Haque, who was media secretary of PFI, was arrested from Rangia in Kamrup rural district.
Patowary said that the PFI was operating from a rented office in Hathigaon area of Guwahati.
The office on the third floor of RSP memorial Complex belongs to a retired Deputy Superintendent of Police of Assam police Tahidul Rahman, he said.
The minister said that the government is determined to take action against the “third force” that tried to vitiate the atmosphere of the state by provoking violence. He said that police were looking for two Congress leaders — Kamrul Islam Choudhury, who is the president of Assam Youth Congress and Zuber Alam who is the vice-president of NSUI, but they are still at large.
The first phase of agitation, which the Aasu had defined as ‘Gana Satyagraha’, came to an end on Wednesday, during which police detained thousands of protestors including Aasu chief adviser Sammujjal Kumar Bhattacharya, general secretary Lurin Jyoti Gogoi, Assamese film actor Barasha Rani Bishoya, singer Manas Robin among others.
Thousands of members and workers of Aasu and 30 other indigenous organisations, artists, cultural activists took part in the ongoing protest.
They courted arrest while shouting slogan, “Scrap CAA or arrest us.”
Meanwhile, normalcy was restored in most of the trouble-torn districts of the state on Wednesday, as the state administration which lifted curfew in Guwahati on Tuesday, decided to relax curfew from Upper Assam districts also.
After massive violent protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, curfew was imposed in Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Tinsukia and a few other cities of Assam on December 11 and the Army was deployed. Flight operations and railway services resumed in Guwahati on Tuesday, while flights to and from Dibrugarh airport were also operating as per schedule.
