The Gauhati High Court has quashed the detention of activist Pranab Doley under the National Security Act (NSA) in Assam. The sessions court had granted bail to Doley on July 29, but he was not released due to subsequent NSA detention.
A division bench of the Gauhati High Court has quashed the detention of activist Pranab Doley under the National Security Act (NSA) in Assam. The court's decision, announced on Friday, follows a bail grant to Doley by a sessions court in Golaghat on July 29. However, a copy of the judgement is not yet available.
Doley was arrested on July 12, days after he took part in a protest against a hotel project at Ingle Pathar, a village adjoining the Kaziranga National Park in Assam. The police had alleged that he 'unlawfully trespassed into the site of the Tea Tribes Museum and thereafter trespassed into the nearby ATDC [Assam Tourism Development Corporation] Hyatt project at Ingle Pathar with deadly weapons' during the protest.
On July 29, the sessions court granted bail to Doley, stating that the investigating officer had already recorded the statements of key witnesses and that there was no possibility of the accused concealing or tampering with the evidence. However, a day later, the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Assam detained Doley under the National Security Act (NSA), alleging that he had carried out 'suspicious foreign transactions from doubtful sources' in violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. This meant that he was not released from jail, despite the bail order.
In August, the Congress party alleged that the invoking of the National Security Act against Doley by the Assam government was part of a 'growing pattern' of the BJP 'weaponising extraordinary laws to silence dissent'. Party leader Jairam Ramesh described the state government’s allegations against Doley as 'vague and speculative'.
Source:
Scroll.in
