Guwahati: Arrested earlier this week for his derogatory remarks against temples and Namghariyas (traditional Assamese prayer house priests) in a speech, Congress legislator Aftab Uddin Mollah was granted bail Thursday. While the Congress has demanded a public apology from Mollah, a regional political party has labelled the action against him a ‘political gimmick’ by the ruling BJP.
Mollah, a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Jaleswar constituency, had made the controversial speech on 4 November at a public event in Goalpara, a video clip of which then went viral, prompting an FIR against him on 7 November.
ThePrint has accessed the video wherein the Congress MLA can be heard targeting the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief Badruddin Ajmal over the latter’s remarks last month on the high crime rate among Muslims in Assam.
Reacting to Ajmal’s speech, Mollah can be heard saying, “Ajmal’s remarks are not his own, but it is Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma who asks him to speak a certain way. Ajmal said Muslims hold the No. 1 position in all crime…If anyone is to be blamed, it is the temple priests and the Namghariyas.”
CM Sarma was quick to react. In a statement to the media Tuesday, Sarma said, “We had to arrest a state Congress MLA because he made a derogatory statement, saying wherever there’s rape or another crime, the temple priests and Satra namghariyas (or namghariyas) are found involved. This is completely false. By making such a statement, the legislator attempted to create communal tension in the state. We will take this case to its logical conclusion.”
The state Congress also issued a show cause notice against Mollah on 5 November, terming his outburst a “highly obnoxious comment” against priests and namghariyas.
“Being a secular democratic political party, the Indian National Congress is totally against the works of spreading hatred, religious and communal poisonous comments…The principle and perspective of the Indian National Congress, is never against saints, priests, peers, maulanas and namghariyas, and the Congress has been always revealing due respects to them (sic),” read the notice issued by Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president, Bhupen Kumar Borah. ThePrint has a copy of the statement.
The notice, while asking the MLA to withdraw his statement and seek public apology, cited that in the last Rajya Sabha elections, Mollah had said that he would “cast his vote in support of a BJP-sponsored candidate as directed by the Chief Minister of Assam.”
On his part, MLA Mollah has not issued an official statement since his release. This report will be updated if and when he does.
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‘Why only Mollah’?
The FIR against Mollah was filed by Guwahati resident Dipak Kumar Das soon after his remarks went viral. Assam’s Special DGP Harmeet Singh confirmed to the media Wednesday that a complaint was received Tuesday against “a hate speech”, and police found the FIR cognizable. ThePrint has a copy of the FIR.
Mollah was remanded to one-day police custody before being produced in the court of the chief judicial magistrate Thursday. “As per law, he was arrested and produced in court. Anybody found acting against law, the law will take its own course,” Special DGP Singh had said.
Regional party Raijor Dal has questioned the action against Mollah, seeking the same treatment of other similar incidents. “What the Congress MLA said is condemnable. But we have also noticed that the Assam chief minister had been making communally provocative statements from time to time. Many FIRs were attempted to be lodged against him by different political leaders, but not one of them got registered. The role of the Assam Police in this regard has been disappointing,” Vasco Da Saikia, working president of Raijor Dal, told ThePrint Thursday.
“Similarly, AIUDF chief Ajmal has also been making communally sensitive statements. Many organisations in Assam had also lodged FIRs against Ajmal, but no action has ever been initiated,” he added.
“The way it has acted against Mollah, in the same spirit, Assam Police should act against the CM and Ajmal,” Saikia said.
Raijor Dal youth wing leader Nirmal Payeng was quoted by the local media Thursday as saying that the incident is a “political gimmick ahead of 2024 elections”.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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