Guwahati: The Directorate of Information and Public Relations (DIPR), Assam has filed a police complaint urging the police to ‘initiate appropriate legal action’ under Section 45 of the Information and Technology Act against an independent Assam-based news portal, The Cross Current, on August 6. The Dispur police has registered a case based on the complaint. Earlier, the DIPR had filed a complaint seeking legal action under Section 66A of the IT Act – which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015. On Saturday evening, the government changed the section it wanted invoked. Gogoi’s lawyer Santanu Borthakur told The Wire, “The FIR also includes charges of defamation under Sections 294/500/505(2) of the IPC.”
The police complaint was filed for a video news report which was critical of Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, minister of information/public relations Pijush Hazarika and the state DIPR. Gautam Pratim Gogoi, the reporter for the story – titled ‘Was Pijush Hazarika subjected to warnings while trying to be Himanta Biswa Sarma’s sycophant?’ – was summoned by the Dispur police on Friday and had to spend the night at the police station. Gogoi told The Wire that the video was removed due to a ‘technical glitch’. His pen drive has been seized by the police, he said.
It has now found itself in the party’s cross hairs on account of a news report which questioned the government for the excessive use of Sarma’s photos on hoardings erected to commemorate two events – congratulating Olympic boxer Lovlina Borgohain and commemorating the death anniversary of Assam’s first chief minister, Gopinath Bordoloi.
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