Assam newspaper faces Bodo ban for reporting its leader’s wedding

Guwahati, February 25: An Assamese newspaper — Asomiya Pratidin — faces ‘ban’ in the Bodo-dominated Kokrajhar and three other districts from Monday, following a report it had carried about the extravagant wedding of Hagrama Mohilary, the chief executive member of Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC). The editor of the newspaper, Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, said Mohilary’s supporters and his Bodo People’s Front (BPF), an ally of the Congress in the state Government, issued a diktat against the newspaper for having written about the ceremony in which an estimated Rs 4 crore was spent.

“Supporters of Mohilary snatched away and burnt our newspaper packets at Kokrajhar and several other places on Sunday and Monday and a newspaper van was set on fire on Monday morning,” said Bhuyan, who had only last week taken over as the editor of the newspaper.

Mohilary is a former militant and chairman of the erstwhile Bodoland Liberation Tigers. He had signed a peace treaty in 2003 to launch the BPF. The BTC was constituted under provisions of the Sixth Schedule. His party, with 11 MLAs, supported the Congress to form the Government in 2006 after the latter failed to win a majority on its own.

“It is not merely an undemocratic attack on the freedom of the press but also a dangerous trend. It is nothing short of fascism,” said Bhuyan, whose newspaper management has filed FIRs at five police stations in Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon district on Monday. The newspaper will also lodge a complaint with the Press Council of India, he added.

At Kokrajhar, three members of the BPF said it was not the party but the “people who love Mohilary” who had expressed their anguish against the newspaper for publishing “untrue” things about the wedding. “The people who love Mohilary felt offended at the manner in which the newspaper wrote nasty things about a solemn ceremony,” Malati Rani Narzary, a senior member of the BPF said.

Mohilary’s wedding reception on Saturday was attended by several ministers. “Asomiya Pratidin” accused Mohilary of misusing the official machinery of the state Government and that of the Council to organise a grand reception, which was held in a huge pandal at Debargaon near Kokrajhar. The guests were not only treated to live music but also a comedy show by actor Johny Lever, the newspaper reported.

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