Assam: Journalist arrested after questioning bank official about alleged financial irregularities

The Assam Police on Tuesday arrested a journalist after a protest by Jatiya Yuva Shakti, the youth wing of the Assam Jatiya Parishad, against alleged financial irregularities in the Assam Cooperative Apex Bank Limited, reported PTI.

Dilwar Hussain Mozumdar, a journalist with digital news outlet The CrossCurrent, had questioned the bank’s managing director, Dambaru Saikia, about the alleged financial mismanagement.

“Strangely, as he was leaving the bank, Mozumder got a call from the Pan Bazar police station, asking him to report at once,” Arup Kalita, editor of The CrossCurrent, told The Wire on Tuesday. “Upon reaching there, he was detained.”

Mozumdar was arrested for the alleged use of abusive and derogatory language “intended to demean and insult” Saikia, the complainant in the case.

He was also booked under a section of the 1989 Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act pertaining to the insult or intimidation of members of the groups with the intent to humiliate them public.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is a director of the Assam Cooperative Apex Bank and Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Biswajit Phukan is its chairman.

The Jatiya Yuva Shakti had organised a protest in front of the bank’s headquarters at Pan Bazar in Guwahati to demand a high-level inquiry and action against those responsible for the alleged financial mismanagement.

Mozumdar, who is also the assistant...

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