Guwahati: The main accused in the alleged ransacking of AASU office at Silapathar was on Monday remanded in police custody for nine days by a Dhemaji court.
The order by the Dhemaji chief judicial magistrate was given a day before the expiry of the transit remand granted by a court in West Bengal, from where the prime accused Subodh Biswas was arrested last week.
The prosecution had sought his police remand and the court granted it. Biswas is the all-India president of the fringe group Nikhil Bharat Bangali Udbastu Samanway Samitee which led the alleged attack.
He was absconding since the incident and Assam police had announced a reward of Rs one lakh for information about him. He was arrested from the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal on March 22 along with his brother Subhas by a joint team of Assam and the local police.
On March 6, the Samitee had organised a public meeting, followed by a march, at Silapathar in Dhemaji district demanding citizenship to all Hindu migrants from Bangladesh.
The other demands made at the meeting, which was attended by an estimated 4,000-5,000 people, included cancellation of ‘D’ voter system, immediate release of Hindu Bengalis from detention camps and an end to atrocities on them.
According to a report of an all-party delegation of Assam Assembly, around 2,500 people marched through the town after the meeting and ransacked the office of the AASU, damaged the Swahid Bedi (martyrs memorial), furniture, electrical items, signboard and photographs of Bhupen Hazarika, one of the foremost cultural icons of Assam and Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, a famed writer of the state.
More than 40 accused named in the FIR and subsequently found involved in the incident were arrested from various parts of Assam. (PTI)
