Mob beat up couple travelling together on bike; force them to marry

Bijay Sankar Bora
Tribune News Service
Guwahati, June 22

Three persons in have been arrested so far in connection with a case of moral policing in which a mob accosted an unmarried couple travelling on a motorcycle at Pukhuripara village at Rongjuli area in Goalpara district about 98 km from here.

State’s Director General of Police (DGP) Kuladhar Saikia informed that one person, Kurban Ali was arrested on Thursday while two others, one Jonab Ali and another were arrested today after police had registered a suo moto case (No. 73/18) in Rongjuli Police station in the wake on the incident going viral in the social media. The incident occurred on June 19 but no case was filed with the police by anyone. The mob even forced the two to get married after holding a meeting at a village school compound

Police are taking help of the video footage circulated in the social media to apprehend the culprits of the mob assault.

The DGP said: “The district police have been instructed not to spare anyone found involved in the mob assault which can’t be tolerated at any cost. Such type of mob assault amount to talibanism, so exemplary punishment will be handed out to the culprits as per the law”.

The mob assault incident, which has occurred close on the heels of June 8 mob lynching of two youths—Nilotpol Das and Abhijeet Nath—at Dokmoka in Karbi Anglong, has caused embarrassment to the state administration as well as the police. The youths were lynched after they had been suspected as child lifters, thanks to social media posts.
The DGP told The Tribune on Friday that Assam Police have, meanwhile, launched a ‘soft policing’ campaign to in coordination with people in different interior parts of the state, including tea estates, urging the people not to get instigated by social media posts and take law into their hands under any circumstances.

“Local police in coordination with community leaders have been organizing such campaign in village market areas, tea estates to make people aware of the evils of social media and against prevailing superstitious beliefs. The efforts have paid dividends in quelling the brewing trouble in the wake of Dokmoka mob lynching,” the DGP said adding that 36 persons were arrested in connection with the mob lynching while 40 others including 8 from Karbi Anglong districts arrested for abusing social media with intention to create disturbance in the state over the incident.

It may be mentioned that Assam Police had first launched its campaign against superstition under the name of ‘Project Prohori’ in Kokrajhar district way back in 2001 under the supervision of Kuladhar Saikia then a DIG.  The project had succeeded in wiping out witchcraft, which had claimed so many innocent lives, from many interior parts of Kokrajhar district. The same police officer is now faced with challenges of tackling superstitions-triggered mob assaults as the DG of Assam Police.