GUWAHATI: The FIR registered against Khasi Students Union (KSU) president Lambokstar Marngar following a complaint lodged by Cachar district BJYM (Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha) over allegedly offensive banners put up by the students union in Shillong recently, has not been withdrawn despite a request by a BJP MLA from Meghalaya.
Cachar district BJYM president Amitesh Chakraborty had last week lodged the complaint against the KSU president at Silchar Sadar police station last week after the union had put up the banners labelling “all Bengalis in Meghalaya as Bangladeshis.”
BJYM is the youth wing of BJP.
“The case has been registered at Silchar Sadar has not withdrawn the case even as a request has been made (by an MLA from Shillong) to withdraw the case…..But I will take a call only after discussions with senior party leaders,” Chakraborty told The Shillong Times on Wednesday.
It may be mentioned that BJP MLA from South Shillong, Sanbor Shullai had requested the BJYM Cachar district president to withdraw the FIR “in the best interest of the people, state and party”.
Shullai also requested senior Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to intervene and request the BJYM leader to withdraw the FIR against the KSU chief.
According to Silchar Sadar police station officer in-charge, Ditumoni Goswami, said that such cases are generally transferred after the necessary investigation to the appropriate police station having competent jurisdiction, which in this case is Meghalaya.
Asked how tenable such complaints are, a senior advocate of Gauhati High Court here said, “Such cases can be lodged in a police station of a different state/district if the incident is believed to impact people in the state/district or any other place where the FIR has been lodged.”
“However, if the investigation agency, after probing all angles, thinks about transferring the case, it can do so with a prayer to the police station having competent jurisdiction,” he said.
When asked about the case, VGK Kynta, senior advocate of Meghalaya High Court, told The Shillong Times, “I will not comment on the merit or veracity of the matter at this juncture considering the sensitivity of the issue. However, every offence shall ordinarily be inquired into and tried by a court within whose local jurisdiction it was committed with reference thereof to chapter XIII of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.”