GUWAHATI: The Congress in Assam on Sunday asked the police why no action was taken against Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for his ‘Jai Bangladesh’ remark in the state assembly two years ago.
“We won’t give protection to anyone for any act that is against the law. But we cannot accept police inaction against BJP MPs and ministers taking the law into their hands,” state Congress chief Bhupen Kumar Borah said.
“Let the organisations going after us also talk about the person who shouted the ‘Jai Bangladesh’ slogan in the assembly. Why was no action taken against the chief minister?” he asked.
The issue was raked up in the wake of the arrest of Congress MLA Sherman Ali Ahmed for his provocative statement on the killing of eight youth at Darrang during the Assam Agitation in 1983.
The party served a show-cause notice to Ahmed and is likely to suspend him by night. Following his arrest, the MLA had demanded, “Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma should be arrested for making communal remarks”.
In December 2019, Sarma had made the statement when some members of the Opposition were protesting the introduction of Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in the Assembly.
Later, an FIR was filed against him. Stating that the law has fixed accountability for the police, Borah asked, “Will the police function as dictated by the Ministers and the MLAs or the Police Act?”
VP inaugurates hospital infra
GUWAHATI: Cancer treatment in Assam, which reports around 52,000 new cases every year, is set to get augmented with the installation of a PET-MRI wing at the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital in Guwahati.
It was inaugurated by Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday.
He was in Assam on a tour of northeast states. Set up at a cost of Rs 62 crore, it is the first-of-its-kind PET-MRI wing in the northeast and the fourth such facility installed at a government hospital in the country.
The machine works faster than PET-CT and is essential for advanced cancer research activities.