The Assam government invoking the National Security Act against activist Pranab Doley was part of a “growing pattern” of the Bharatiya Janata Party “weaponising extraordinary laws to silence dissent”, alleged the Congress on Monday.

The Act allows for long periods of detention without trial up to a year.

Doley was arrested on July 12, days after he took part in a protest against a hotel project at Ingle Pathar, a village adjoining the Kaziranga National Park.

The police had alleged that he “unlawfully trespassed into the site of the Tea Tribes Museum and thereafter trespassed into the nearby ATDC [Assam Tourism Development Corporation] Hyatt project at Ingle Pathar with deadly weapons” during the protest.

On July 29, a sessions court in Golaghat granted bail to Doley, stating that the investigating officer had already recorded the statements of key witnesses and that there was no possibility of the accused concealing or tampering with evidence.

A day later, the BJP government in Assam detained him under the National Security Act, alleging that Doley had carried out “suspicious foreign transactions from doubtful sources” in violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act.

This meant that he was not released from jail, despite the bail order.

On Monday, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh described the Assam government’s allegations against Doley as “vague and speculative” and claimed that this was a familiar script followed by the Narendra Modi government.

“Similar attempts have been witnessed in Uttar Pradesh, where the NSA was invoked against labour activists protesting against exploitative working conditions in Noida,” said Ramesh.

Ramesh was referring to the Uttar Pradesh government booking 60-year-old Satya Verma and 25-year-old Aakriti Chaudhary under the National Security Act for allegedly inciting violence during the workers’ protest in Noida in April.

Verma is a former journalist from Lucknow and Chaudhary, a history graduate from Delhi University, is from Durgapur in West Bengal. The two are members of the Mazdoor Bigul Dasta, a workers’ organisation.

The protest was held on April 13 by workers from several industrial units to press long-standing demands that their salaries be increased. A day later, more than 350 persons had been arrested.

Ramesh said on Monday that the court, while granting bail to Doley, observed that “where ecological preservation intersects with indigenous survival, criminal law cannot be used to suppress legitimate local anxieties”.

However, it was “clear that the Assam government invoked the NSA to do exactly that”, alleged the MP.

He also pointed out that the Supreme Court and several High Courts have cautioned against using preventive detention laws “to defeat or circumvent judicial orders granting bail, or merely to prolong a person’s incarceration”.

“BJP governments across the country cannot suppress legitimate grievances of working-class, indigenous, and marginalised communities through arrests and draconian laws,” Ramesh wrote on social media.

Written by Sneha. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

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