New Delhi: The Gauhati High Court on Friday ordered the immediate release of environmental activist Pranab Doley, quashing the case against him under the National Security Act. 40-year-old Doley has been in jail since 13 July, when he was arrested in Guwahati, for protesting against the development of a new luxury hotel near the Kaziranga National Park in Assam.
He secured bail two weeks later but on 30 July the Assam state government invoked charges against him under the National Security Act, 1980, which allows preventive detention without a trial. Since then, Doley has remained in the Golaghat district jail.
Doley belongs to the Mising community and has been involved in indigenous rights, land rights and environmental activism in Assam for more than a decade. He graduated from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences with a Masters degree in Social Work. He founded organisations such as the All Kaziranga Affected Communities’ Rights Committee, People Ecology Network, and Jyoti Bishnu Cultural and Research Centre.
Since 2023, Doley, along with other members of the Greater Kaziranga Land and Human Rights Protection Committee, has been protesting against the new five-star Hyatt property to be built in the Kaziranga National Park. He argues that the proposed hotel would lead to the displacement of Indigenous and Adivasi communities living in the region, as well as cause disturbance and threats to the wildlife – Kaziranga is one of the last haunts of the one-horned rhino in the world.
In 2017, he was part of the protests against Kaziranga National Park’s policy to shoot at suspected poachers, which led to over 50 people, including local villagers, being killed in the park in just three years. Doley had filed multiple RTI applications with the park authorities to prove that many of the deaths had been those of innocent villagers. He contended that the park had not investigated them, and thus lacked crucial information to link the killings to actual poaching activity.
Doley’s arrest in July drew sharp criticism from international groups such as the International Land Coalition, which called for his immediate release and for halting the proposed luxury development project in Kaziranga.
“We call on the government of India to end all acts of intimidation, surveillance, harassment, and criminalisation against members of the Greater Kaziranga Land and Human Rights Protection Committee and other Indigenous community leaders,” said the statement by the International Land Coalition.
According to the NSA invocation order against Doley, his activities were “prejudicial to the maintenance of public order as well as security of the state.” The order also brought up earlier cases against Doley, related to road blockages, damage to public property, and ‘intent’ to create lawlessness.
However, in its pronouncement on Friday, the Guwahati High Court said that the allegations against Doley were not proximate, and that he had not even been presented with the materials used for prosecution – a clear violation of his constitutional right.
(Edited by Aakriti Handa)