Assam reporter arrested again after getting bail, CM claims he is ‘not a journalist’

Assam-based journalist Dilwar Hussain Mozumder was arrested again on Thursday for allegedly trespassing on a bank, a day after he was granted bail in a separate case.

The second case against him was filed based on a complaint by the managing director of the Assam Co-operative Apex Bank, Mozumder’s lawyer told Scroll.

Mozumder, a journalist with digital news outlet The CrossCurrent, had sought to ask questions to the bank official regarding alleged irregularities on Tuesday. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is a director of the Assam Cooperative Apex Bank and Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Biswajit Phukan is its chairman.

Before Mozumder was arrested in the second case, Sarma told reporters on Thursday that two to three cases had been registered against the reporter and he would be arrested in all.

Mozumder was detained by the police on Tuesday after a protest by Jatiya Yuva Shakti, the youth wing of the Assam Jatiya Parishad, against alleged financial irregularities in the bank.

He was subsequently arrested later in the day in the case filed by a security guard at the bank, who alleged criminal intimidation and violation of the 1989 Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act.

The chief judicial magistrate had granted Mozumder bail on Wednesday evening but he remained in the Guwahati Central Jail on Thursday, The Indian Express reported. He was...

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