‘How low will you fall?’: Assam CM draws flak for ‘commual’ remark about Muslim journalist

Press organisations and Opposition leaders have joined hands to condemn Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for rebuffing a Muslim journalist, who asked him questions at a press conference, with a communal remark.

Senior politicians as well as press and civil society organisations in Assam said Sarma’s comment was unacceptable and that he unnecessarily dragged the religious identity of the journalist into the conversation. Sarma has a long history of making communal remarks.

At a press interaction in Guwahati on August 21, Shah Alam, a journalist with local media organisation Newz Now, asked the chief minister about concerns about urbanisation-drive deforestation and the destruction of hills in Mandakata, on the outskirts of Guwahati, in Sarma’s Jalukbari Assembly constituency.

In response, Sarma asked Alam his name and insinuated that he was associated with Mahbubul Haque, the owner of University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya. On August 13, Sarma had accused the university of “flood jihad”, by destroying hills in a neighbouring district in Meghalaya that resulted in flash floods in Guwahati early in August.

“I would like to question Shah Alam and Mahbubul Haque, whether they will allow us to live in Assam,” Sarma said, alluding to the Hindutva panic over a “demographic change” in Assam’s population where Muslims of Bangladeshi origin will...

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