A 42-year-old journalist was brutally assaulted in broad daylight in Assam’s Kamrup district on Sunday and has claimed that the police have failed to take action against the accused, who attacked him allegedly for his reportage on local land-grabbing activities.
Milan Mahanta, who works with the leading Assamese daily ‘Pratidin’, told the media that he was tied to an electric post and thrashed by goons after he reported on a series of incidents related to gambling and forceful land acquisition against them. Only one of the accused has been arrested so far, despite naming all the assailants in his complaint, he said.
“I angered the local goons — Sanjay Thakuria, Budu Thakuria and Diganta Das — who not only gamble but also indulge in land-grabbing activities. I reported on them and they were angry that I brought their activities into focus,” he told The Print from the hospital where he is currently under treatment.
Meanwhile, local journalists in Kamrup’s Mirza area, which is 45 km west of Guwahati, have taken to the streets in protest against the violent attack on Mahanta.
“They wanted to kill me, I guess. I had written a series of reports against them. They also tried to attack people who came forward to save me. It has been three days since the incident yet police never came to my home to ask for details,” Mahanta, who lives in Amranga village, which is just 5 km from where he was attacked, told NDTV.
The incident was caught in a viral video, following which massive outrage was sparked in the area as Mirza-based journalists demanded immediate action against the assailants from Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.
“Locals also know these goons and how they have disturbed the law and order situation in the whole area,” Mahanta, a crime reporter for two decades, told The Print.
The attack on Mahanta came days after a senior Assamese scribe, Parag Bhuyan, was suspiciously run over by a speeding vehicle in an incident.
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