Guwahati, Sep 27 (PTI) Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leader Ashutosh Ranka on Sunday evening said the “illegal detention” of him and other volunteers by the Assam Police has “finally ended”.
He made the remarks in a post on X after being released along with the other detainees.
“The illegal detention by Assam Police has finally ended. We have asked Police to go and drop us from where we were picked up illegally in the first place,” Ranka said.
Ranka, along with over 40 CJP volunteers, were picked up by the police from opposition Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) leader Kunki Chowdhury’s residence at the Chowdhury Tilla earlier in the day, ahead of a meeting.
The group was taken to the 10th Assam Police battalion headquarters in Kahilipara area of the city, with authorities remaining tight-lipped over the matter.
Addressing a press meet after his release, Ranka said, “The Assam Police detained me and my team illegally. We asked them on what basis we were detained, but the police said they didn’t know, and that they had orders from the top.”
He said the CJP volunteers’ scheduled meeting was to discuss issues such as how schools in the state could be improved, how rights of the indigenous people of Kaziranga could be protected, and “how the ruling dispensation returned to power in the April election by drawing boundaries of constituencies to their benefit”.
“(CM) Himanta Biswa Sarma is afraid of the cockroaches and used his police to threaten us. He forgets that this is the land of Zubeen da (Zubeen Garg), who fought for what is right. We want schools for our children and jobs for our youth,” Ranka said.
The CJP leader said Sarma “repeated the mistake” of Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the Jantar Mantar protest in Delhi, and asserted that the outfit’s movement will further intensify across the northeast now.
“Sarma may have all the resources, but we are not afraid. We are fighting for our rights,” Ranka said.
A video uploaded on Ranka’s X account earlier on Sunday showed him sitting in a moving vehicle with the police, and was purportedly heard saying that Sarma detained him and the CJP volunteers as he was “afraid” of the people of Assam, since the outfit wants to “expose” the “reality” of schools in the state.
Talking to reporters while being whisked away by police personnel, Ranka had said the police action showed the CM was “afraid of being exposed”.
“He (Sarma) is scared that if we show the schools here, the country will know the reality. He is afraid that people will know how their rights were being snatched in Kaziranga for the benefit of corporates. Also, man-made floods have taken scores of lives.
“But, we are not afraid of him. We know that he won the assembly election by redrawing boundaries of constituencies,” Ranka had alleged.
NCP (SP) spokesperson Anish Gawande, addressing reporters after the detention, claimed that Ranka and 41 others were “illegally and unconstitutionally detained from a private residence when a meet-up was scheduled to take place with CJP volunteers”.
He asserted that no legal notice was served on them nor were they told of the sections imposed.
“It is nothing short of jungle raj under CM Sarma, who is afraid of any and all kind of dissent,” Gawande had said. PTI SSG RBT
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