How I became a “Most Wanted RAW Agent” !! – IV

Lack of roads & bridges made it a logistical nightmare to operate in the interiors of Kokrajhar & Chirang. This also necessitated keeping ready more ‘back-up’ vehicles in the field.

In my earlier posts that I have listed below, I have already revealed about how ludicrously baseless allegations were used to have cases under cognizable, non-bailable sections of IPC registered against me to have me arrested on 2 February 2013 in Guwahati, Assam, and once I was arrested, how the same were touted as gospel by the Assam Police and a section of the media.

“How I became a Most Wanted RAW Agent !!” – I

“How I became a Most Wanted RAW Agent !!” – II

“How I became a Most Wanted RAW Agent !!” – III

Here I shall reveal how a section of Assam Police officials sought to justify my patently illegal arrest by registering more false cases after I was arrested.

In order to do so, I reproduce below, word-for-word, the FIR which became the basis of the false allegations that I had lakhs of rupees outstanding in payments to travel agents as rental for vehicles hired.

Dispur P.S. Case No. 233/2013 u/s 420/406 of IPC registered on 03/02/2013

To

The Officer-in-Charge

Dispur Police Station

Sub: FIR

Sir,

I beg to inform you that I look after the business of the Accent Tours and Travels as an employee. On 14/07/2012 Sri Nilim Dutta, resident of Beltola Survey and his mother Mina Dutta hired a vehicle from our agency on monthly contract and travelled to various places. But they have failed to pay all the vehicle-hiring charges to us entirely. When we asked them to settle the bills, they sent us a cheque, in his father’s name, on 17/08/2012 by post to us but the cheque was for only Rs. 30,000.00 (Thirty thousand only) and the same could not be deposited at the bank as there were some anomalies. They owe our Agency Rs. 180,618.00 at present and whenever we send someone to collect the payment, he doesn’t meet us and remains untraceable. It is my humble request to register a case in this regard, making his father and mother as co-accused, and take necessary action.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully,

Durlove Narayan Bora

Accent Tours & Travels

Ganeshguri, Guwahati

The above FIR is dated 03/02/2012 and a case was registered on its basis the same day.

The reality, as I shall now reveal below, is markedly different.

In July 2012, when I was in Upper Assam districts of Jorhat, Golaghat and Sibsagar, one of our vehicles developed a snag and I needed an immediate replacement. That vehicle was indeed hired from one Mr. Durlove Bora of Accent Tours & Travels in Guwahati. He introduced himself to my mother as the proprietor of the said Agency when he accompanied the vehicle & the driver when it reported to my home at Guwahati (not in Beltola Survey as claimed in the FIR). I was in Upper Assam then, and since the vehicle was to reach me there, I had instructed a nominal advance to be paid to him in Guwahati and pick up some luggage as well. That is the only involvement my mother had with this whole business. Also, there was no ‘monthly contract’ under which we had hired the vehicle.

As ethnic violence broke out soon thereafter, I rushed to Kokrajhar and Chirang from Upper Assam. Mr. Bora’s vehicle which I had used in Upper Assam was duly returned to him and the payments cleared. Soon, however, I needed more vehicles in Kokrajhar & Chirang, for relief operations and to be used by my security detail as escort vehicles. It is a fact that we never imposed on the district administration for any resources other than the security detail and since vehicles couldn’t be hired in Kokrajhar or Chirang locally, all of it were hired from Guwahati and sent to me there. Mr. Durlove Narayan Bora/Accent Tours & Travels also provided us with vehicles on a few occasions to be used there.

It must be noted that Mr. Durlove Narayan Bora wasn’t the only one who had provided us vehicles in that period. Also, it must be noted that the log-sheets of the vehicles in use were duly signed daily either by me or by any of our authorized staff as per procedure. As we were responding to an emergency arising out of a huge humanitarian crisis, for operational convenience, I authorized interim payments in cash against delivery of goods or services even without proper bills being submitted to us.

And, contrary to what has been claimed in the FIR, that is how we made payments totaling to Rs. 142,500.00 in cash to Durlove Narayan Bora of Accent Tours & Travels, the details of which are provided below along with the copies of receipts obtained from him against each such payment:

On 14/07/2012 Rs.      1,500.00

On 21/07/2012 Rs.      5,000.00

On 28/07/2012 Rs.      5,000.00

On 13/08/2012 Rs.    13,000.00

On 24/08/2012 Rs.      7,000.00

On 13/09/2012 Rs.    55,000.00

On 01/10/2012 Rs.    31,000.00

On 07/10/2012 Rs.    25,000.00

These were not the only payment made to Mr. Durlove Narayan Bora, however.

When in October 2012, the violence seemed to have abated and we had things under control, an internal audit revealed that Durlove Narayan Bora/Accent Tours & Travels had been paid in access of the actual charges of hiring vehicles. Bora was summoned and this was pointed out to him. I personally asked him to complete the bills and submit them as soon as possible. He promised me to do so and said that whatever we had paid in excess, he would want to adjust it against future bills.

Meanwhile, we laid plans to expand our involvement in Kokrajhar & Chirang for the post-conflict reconstruction and rehabilitation. This necessitated creation of infrastructure and logistical facilities on the ground there across several locations. Among the things needed were 2 more new vehicles. It was then that Mr. Durlove Narayan Bora offered to lease out to us on a year long contract 2 such new vehicles. He requested to me, however, for some advance as he had run short of cash to have these new vehicles financed. Since a contract couldn’t be signed without the vehicles, and because he already had been paid in excess, I agreed to pay him, but not in cash.

Accordingly, a further Rs. 96,000.00 was paid out of my personal account in the Canara Bank to Durlove Narayan Bora through cheques, the details of which are given below.

On 10/10/2012 vide Cheque No. 66501, Rs.   20,000.00

On 13/10/2012 vide Cheque No. 66502, Rs.   31,000.00

On 18/10/2012 vide Cheque No. 66510, Rs.   20,000.00

On 05/11/2012 vide Cheque No. 66937, Rs.   25,000.00

Soon thereafter, violence broke out once again in Kokrajhar & Chirang. All our rehabilitation plans had to be postponed and we were once again caught up in monitoring and intervening in the situation as best as we could.

Mr. Durlove Narayan Bora never submitted any bills, nor provided us with 2 more new vehicles on lease for which he had secured an advance of Rs. 96,000.00 from me. Finally, in January 2013, on my return from Delhi, I asked him to submit his bills without failing within February 2013 and return us whatever money (in excess of a lakh) that had been paid to him in excess. He sought time till the end of March 2013 and to be allowed to refund it in installments. As is my nature, I relented.

I was naturally surprised to see him at the Dispur Police Station on the afternoon of 3 February 2013 as I was lying there injured. For a moment, I thought he had come to offer me support. My premature assumption was soon put to rest when ASI Arun Baruah and he sat down to jot down the FIR I have produced word-for-word above. When I taunted them that what will they do when I bring up the receipts for cash payments, they laughed confidently and said, “But how will you? All your files etc are lying locked up in Cottage #3. You don’t have any evidence in your hand now.”

Unfortunately for them, we have operated for more than a decade in an extremely hostile environment. And we never leave valuable documents and possessions unsecured. What they thought was lying locked in Cottage #3 (the bungalow I used as the control room in Guwahati) had actually been removed to safe custody much earlier.

In all, we had paid Durlove Narayan Bora/Accent Tours & Travels a total of Rs. 238,500.00 of which less than a lakh was actually due to him. And the Assam Police still saw it fit to register a case under cognizable, no-bailable sections of the IPC against me. To perpetuate their lies.

Mr. Durlove Narayan Bora has claimed in the FIR that whenever he had gone to ask me for payments, I had refused to meet him and had remained ‘untraceable’. I would want him to explain that if no payments were made to him at all, what was it that he had provided us the signed receipts for on numerous occasions? And, from whom did he collect the payments in lakhs if I had remained untraceable?

Will the Assam Police too care to explain?

Before I conclude, I must once again point out that:

(1) Even in this FIR, there isn’t even a sentence accusing me of claiming to be a RAW official.

(2) Even in this FIR, there isn’t even a sentence accusing me that any cheques I had issued had been dishonoured due to insufficient funds.

As to the journalists of The Times of India, First Post In or the Rediff.com (and quite a few more newspapers and television news channels) who reported these gleefully against me, rather than revealing anything about me, their malicious reports have revealed their own complete lack of ethics and professionalism.

Such is their nature of ‘truth’.

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How I became a “Most Wanted RAW Agent” !! – III

Tags

Assam Police, bodo extremists

In the middle of November 2012, when I was supposed to be in hiding, as hinted darkly in the FIR, I was actually very much in the public eye. Seen here on the night of 16 November 2012 at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital (GMCH) paying a visit to Ikramul Ahmed who survived a shooting by Bodo extremists at point blak range in Kochugaon in Kokrajhar on 14 November 2012, and whose shifting to GMCH I had personally overseen.

I have already revealed, in “How I became a Most Wanted RAW Agent” – I, how in the feverish imagination of a bunch of Assam Police officers and the media, I became a RAW agent with almost supernatural powers of being able to change form from my father to myself while jumping off a building.

Or, how my family and I possess such supernatural powers to be omnipresent in cities thousands of kilometers apart or be able to live in hotels without leaving a trace in the guest registers or sign a single bill during our stays in “How I became a Most Wanted RAW Agent” – II.

I shall now reveal here how FIRs can be filed and cases registered under cognizable, non-bailable sections of the IPC by the Assam Police without even a crime being committed, with patently mala fide intent, because I had to be arrested for ‘something’.

This was the case which I was arrested in, allegedly for failure to pay house rent for months, security deposit for the same and because the cheques I had issued had allegedly bounced. How much truth there is in the allegations shall be evident from the FIR itself.

In order to do so, I produce below the FIR, word-for-word, of the case for which 5 days ‘police custody’ was sought for me (which was of course rejected outright by the court), even though I was seriously wounded and should have been in hospital.

Dispur P.S. Case No. 2770/2012 u/s 420/406 of IPC registered on 27/08/2012

Most Urgent

To

The Officer-in-Charge

Dispur Police Station

Guwahati 781006

Assam

Sub: THE COTTAGE ON RENT – First Information Report (FIR) in respect of Locking the Cottage by the Tenant Mr. Nilim Dutta for last 1 ½ months, non payment of Rent from Nov. 2012 and Security Deposit of Rs. 1.25 lakhs due on 29.08.2012 i.e. the Date of Signing the Agreement.

Dear Sir,

I have the honour to draw your kind attention to the content subject and would like to submit the following for your most urgent and kind action:

(1) In response to our Advt. of the Cottage for rent released on the Assam Tribune dt. August 5^th, 12^th, & 19^th 2012, (all Sundays) Mr. Nilim Dutta approached us for rent of the cottage and signed an Agreement for the same for 11 months w.e.f  29-08-2012, the date of signing of the Agreement. A copy of the Agreement is enclosed herewith.

(2) On the date of the Agreement dt. 29-08-2012, Mr. Dutta handed over a cheque of Rs. 1,25,000.00 drawn on HDFC Bank Ltd. Fancy Bazar towards the Security Deposit with a word to present the cheque to our HDFC Account at Khanapara Branch after one week when Mr. Dutta gets his funds transferred from New Delhi.

However the Security Deposit amount could not be encashed, as Mr. Dutta every time pleaded that his amount is yet to be transferred from his Head Office, New Delhi. As a result the cheque remained uncashed and is no longer valid today.

(3) The Cottage rent for the month of August, September and October, 2012 were paid but the rent for the month of November 2012 not yet paid, though due on 4^th December 2012.

(4) Initially, Mr. Dutta, his sister along with his father and mother stayed together in the Cottage. However, intermittently his mother and father informed that they go to Jorhat, Tezpur etc and stay there, while Mr. Dutta and his sister now and often go to Bodoland as his official duty and stay there weeks together.

On occupancy of the Cottage w.e.f. 29-08-2012, Mr. Dutta and his family did not bring any furniture, fixtures including sleeping cots. They started sleeping on the floor telling us that they are gradually arranging sleeping cots, but they said they feel comfortable sleeping in the top floor. Till date, they did not brought any furnitures and beds.

(5) From October 2012 last, Mr. Dutta’s parents started staying elsewhere but occasionally came to the Cottage and stayed a few nights and then again gone.

(6) Since November 1^st week, 2012, the Cottage is kept locked, all doors and windows closed. However, at dead of midnight Mr. Dutta used to enter the campus and silently unlock the main front door of the Cottage located in the entrance verandah, then opens the back door of the Cottage, then lock the front door as well as the back door, giving an impression that nobody stays in. It is very difficult for us to know when he comes and goes and what he does inside the Cottage.

Gradually, we could find that somebody was using the top floor bathroom as the drain pipe’s discharge from the top bathroom flows through the back side drain of the Cottage. This proves that somebody stays at night in the Cottage without our knowledge. This poses a great serious security threat to us and the entire campus under present day condition.

(7) After receipt of our mail  dated 17-12-2012 (copy enclosed) Mr. Dutta gave a call to us stating that he was terribly busy in New Delhi with the Ministry of Home Affairs regarding the Bodoland issue followed by his mail to Mr. M.K. Sarma (my husband) dated 20-12-2012 reproduced below:

from: Nilim Dutta nilimdutta@gmail.com

to: Mrinal Kumar Sarma

date: Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 12:04 PM

subject: Re: The Cottage on Rent – Non payment of Security Deposit, Rent etc

Dear Mr. Sarma,

I am in receipt of your earlier mail and I asked Nirajita to leave it to me to reply to.

There is absolutely no need to worry and not only will I reply but resolve all other matters as well late tonight. Just that an exceedingly hectic schedule till this evening will keep me preoccupied here in Delhi.

Regards,

Nilim Dutta

The same day (20-12-2012), I have addressed a mail (copy enclosed) to Mr. Nilim Dutta about our great worry of the Cottage, its upkeepment and total silence on the issue of non-payment of Rent, Security Deposit and Electricity dues etc, drawing his urgent attention to the Clause 02 (XV) of the Deed of Agreement, dated 29-08-2012, as below:

I have been compelled to revoke the Clause 02 (XV) of the Deed of Agreement, dated 29-08-2012 with immediate effect i.e. by December 29^th , 2012 you are to peacefully hand over the possession instantly and notify to you any consequential damages caused by you to the property  for payment etc. with information  to the Officer-in-Charge, Dispur Police Station, Guwahati 781006.

I regret to state that till date as addressing this letter to you, we have not received any word from Mr. N. Dutta.

In view of the above extreme circumstances we have been put through since 1^st November 2012, I have the honour to inform you the same and sincerely request for arranging our entry into the Cottage under clause 02 (XV) of the Deed of Agreement, dated 29-08-2012 in your presence on December 29-12-2012 at your most convenient time.

Thanking you,

Yours Sincerely,

Mrs. Archana Sharma

Cottage #3, Housing Colony,

Rukmininagar, Basistha Road

Guwahati – 781006,

Assam, India

Mrinal Kumar Sarma

Ex Managing Director

North Eastern Development Finance Corportaion Ltd

Mimistry of Finance

Govt of India

Copy enclosed:

(1) Copy of Agreement, dated 29-08-2012.

(2) Copy of HDFC Bank Cheque, dated 29-09-2012

The above FIR is dated 27/12/2012 and a case was registered on its basis the same day.

The problems with the above piece of fiction are numerous. I shall point out only the ones most relevant, legally.

First, Mrs. Archana Sharma and Mr. Mrinal Kumar Sarma claims in para (2) of the FIR that,

“On the date of the Agreement dt. 29-08-2012, Mr. Dutta handed over a cheque of Rs. 1,25,000.00 drawn on HDFC Bank Ltd. Fancy Bazar towards the Security Deposit with a word to present the cheque to our HDFC Account at Khanapara Branch after one week when Mr. Dutta gets his funds transferred from New Delhi.”

That it is a lie is evident from the fact that the copy of the cheque drawn on HDFC Bank Ltd. Fancy Bazar which he has enclosed with the FIR is dated 29/09/2012. Was I supposed to pay them the Security Deposit within a week from 29/08/2012 with a cheque dated 29/09/2012? Or was there explicit understanding which was entirely different as would be revealed by e-mail records that is being produced before a competent court?

Second, Mrs. Archana Sharma and Mr. Mrinal Kumar Sarma further claims in para (2) of the FIR that,

“However the Security Deposit amount could not be encashed, as Mr. Dutta every time pleaded that his amount is yet to be transferred from his Head Office, New Delhi. As a result the cheque remained uncashed and is no longer valid today.”

Truth is, a cheque dated 29/09/2012 (which is actually the date of the Cheque issued as established by the enclosed copy) would be valid till 29/12/2012. Hence the claim that the cheque was ‘no longer valid’ on 27/12/2012 is entirely false. What prevented Mrs. Archana Sharma from depositing this valid cheque in her account of 27 December 2012 if indeed the Security Deposit was outstanding? Also, when the cheque itself was valid and the same had not even been deposited, let alone being dishonoured due to insufficient funds, what crime had been committed for a case to be registered?

Third, Mrs. Archana Sharma and Mr. Mrinal Kumar Sarma again claims in para (3) of the FIR that,

“The Cottage rent for the month of August, September and October, 2012 were paid but the rent for the month of November 2012 not yet paid, though due on 4^th December 2012.”

Truth is, as per the Deed of Agreement for the Cottage signed on 29 August 2012, that the rent of Rs. 25,000 per month would be calculated from 1 September 2012, is explicitly mentioned in the Agreement, and that it would be due on the 4^th of each successive month. Hence, the rent for the first month, that is September 2012, was due on 4^th October 2012 and duly paid and record of payment obtained. And it continued without default even for a single month. Therefore, isn’t the rent for three months, as explicitly admitted in the FIR, actually for the months of September, October and November 2012? Isn’t it therefore a fact that on the date the FIR was filed and a case was registered with congnizable, non-bailable sections of the IPC based on it, that is on 27 December 2012, not even a month’s rent was due and rent for the month of December 2012 was due only on January 2013? Even here, not even a cause of action even for a civil suit had arisen, let alone a criminal case under cognizable, non-bailable sections of the IPC. Why was it so important that it was done in spite of absolutely no grounds for registering a case?

There are numerous other false claims as well.

In para (4) of the FIR it is claimed that my family had lived in the said bungalow from 29/08/2012.

Whereas, Dispur PS Case No. 2432/2012 u/s 420/406/511 of IPC registered on 8 November 2012, claims Shri Dulal Chandra Dutta’s family lived in Hotel Nivedan in that period till October 2012.

Again, Dispur PS Case No. 233/2013 u/s 420/406 of IPC registered on 3 February 2013, on the other hand, claims that my family and I have been residing in yet another address since July 2012.

Can all of these competing claims be true?

In para (6) of the FIR, it is claimed that,

“Since November 1^st week, 2012, the Cottage is kept locked, all doors and windows closed. However, at dead of midnight Mr. Dutta used to enter the campus and silently unlock the main front door of the Cottage located in the entrance verandah, then opens the back door of the Cottage, then lock the front door as well as the back door, giving an impression that nobody stays in. It is very difficult for us to know when he comes and goes and what he does inside the Cottage.”

The truth, however, is that even on the evening of 8 November 2012 (the day the Dispur P.S. Case No. 2432/2012 was registered), at about 4:30 pm, when ASI Arun Baruah, along with a few armed police personnel from the Dispur PS had come to that very same bungalow, which was supposed to have been kept locked, he found it very much occupied as would a normal bungalow used as a temporary ‘control room’ with living quarters would be. ASI Arun Barua also found me in that very same bungalow, along with some staff, and we had a not very amicable interaction in its living room. I must also add that ASI Arun Baruah did not have to climb in through the window or break open the lock (which would have been illegal) to enter the house.

Raghu Rai and my mother at Cottage # 3, Rukmininagar, Guwahati (which acted as my ‘control room’ for our work in the violence affected districts of Kokrajhar & Chirang whenever I was in Guwahati) on the evening of 14 November 2012 before the informal dinner I hosted.

On the evening of 14 November 2012, on my return from Kokrajhar that evening, I hosted a small informal dinner in that very bungalow where Mr. Raghu Rai and his daughter, who had spent their Diwali with us among the victims of the ethnic conflict in Kokrajhar and Chirnag, too were present. I don’t remember Mr. Raghu Rai and his daughter climbing in through the window or sneaking in through the back door. Also present in that dinner were Mrs. Archana Sharma and Mr. Mrinal Kumar Sarma. I am rather curious whether they climbed in through the window or sneaked in through the back door. Yes, there are photographs and other evidence to prove the same.

On the evening of 16 November 2012, on the live TV debate “Proxongokrome” in DY 365 on the ethnic violence in BTC districts of Kokrajhar & Chirang. (From left) Bhupen Bora, (then Parliamentary Secretary for Home, Government of Assam), Mrinal Talukdar, Haider Hussain (Editor, Asomiya Pratidin) and I. It was on this show where it was announced that there will be a crackdown on armed elements in BTC who were responsible for the violence. Next morning, Mono Brahma, Executive Member BTC, was arrested for possession of illegal AK 56 rifles and ammunition and police security of a number of prominent BPF functionaries were withdrawn.

Two days later, on the evening of 16 November 2012, I appeared on the live TV debate on DY365 along with Bhupen Bora, who happened to be the Parliamentary Secretary in charge of Home for Government of Assam, and who played a instrumental role in dealing firmly with the law & order situation in Kokrajhar and Chirang arising out of the ethnic violence there and Haider Hussain, then the Editor of Assam’s largest circulating Assamese daily, Asomiya Pratidin. Mrs. Archana Sharma, Mr. Mrinal Kumar Sarma, their daughter watched the show sitting in the living room of that very bungalow with my parents who came visiting. Since I was at the studio of the television channel, I wouldn’t be able to tell whether they all climbed in through the window or sneaked in through the back door.

Surprisingly, Mr. Mrinal Kumar Sarma also claimed on TV after my arrest on 2 February 2012, that the house was kept locked from first week of December 2012 which contradicts his own claim in the FIR that it was kept locked from 1 November 2012.

There is a lot more to this story than I am revealing here, and shall be dealt with in an appropriate court of law, but what must not be overlooked is that if Mrs. Archana Sharma and Mr. Mrinal Kumar Sarma had communicated to me on 20 December 2012 that I was to peacefully hand over the said premises on 29 December 2012, as mentioned in para (7) of the FIR, what was the ground for even approaching the police to have a case registered under cognizable, non-bailable sections of the IPC against me just two days prior to the intended handover?

Why was it at all necessary to plead to the police to arrange for an ‘entry’ into the bungalow, as prayed for in the last para of the FIR, when it was to be handed over anyway?

Was the FIR to be the ‘excuse’ for the police to enter the bungalow and take possession of what was believed to have been kept in it, like damning evidences of findings from our probe into the ethnic violence in Kokrajhar and Chirnag?

I was as yet unaware of these developments, when on the morning of 29 December 2012, I received a call from the daughter of Mrs. Archana Sharma and Mr. Mrinal Kumar Sarma curtly informing me that they will enter the bungalow and take possession of everything. As I was still in Delhi on that day. I immediately warned them of the consequences of such an unlawful act through an e-mail. Was this also a ruse to make me rush to Guwahati, something which I refused to fall for anyway?

In an e-mail on 4 January 2013, Mrs. Archana Sharma and Mr. Mrinal Kumar Sarma communicated to me that, “Your belongings in the property are under lock and key and to the visible eye, there has been no break-in. Let me assure you that I do not plan to do any unlawful break-in……,” contrary to what they pleaded for in the FIR just barely a week ago.

The matter was still unresolved when I returned to Guwahati from Delhi. I was still unaware of that a case under cognizable, non-bailable sections of the IPC had been registered against me on patently false allegations. When I was arrested on the night of 2 February, 2013 and produced in court on 3 February 2013, this was the only case where 5 days police custody was sought, even though I should have been in the hospital because of the serious injuries. The Investigating Officer (IO), S.I. N.K. Das, hid my medical reports and tried to pass off my injuries as having been sustained earlier. It was my sister Smita, who was produced before the judicial magistrate too, who disputed the IO’s version of events and exposed his lies. When the judicial magistrate questioned the Investigating Officer as to why was my custody at all needed, there was no explanation from him. Already finding the IO to be lying, the lady who was the judicial magistrate we were produced before, came out of her court room to speak to me in the police vehicle where I was lying and angrily rebuked the IO and not only rejected his plea for my police custody, but directed the jail authorities to have me admitted to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital immediately and then file a compliance report within 48 hours. Wasn’t my police custody sought because that was the only way they could enter the bungalow without unlawfully breaking-in or without securing a search warrant? And wasn’t that the intention because that was the only way they thought could take away the mass of collected documents and evidence? Fortunately for us, what they believed we had left lying there in the bungalow was put away in safe custody long before that.

Before I conclude, however, I must once again point out that:

(1) Even in this FIR, there isn’t even a sentence accusing me of claiming to be a RAW official.

(2) Even in this FIR, there isn’t even a sentence accusing me that any cheques I had issued had been dishonoured due to insufficient funds.

Will the media, which widely reported the above allegations, now clarify where from had they quoted these charges?

The bitter truth is, on  27 December 2012, there was no ground for even a civil suit or a complaint under the N.I. Act, let alone a criminal case under cognizable, no-bailable sections of the IPC. 

The Dangerous Logic of Discarding Credible Evidence as Bazaar Gossip: Rebutting Ashok Malik on Ishrat Jehan

Tags

Ashok Malik, CBI, Fake encounter, Ishrat Jehan, Narendra Modi, Rajendra Kumar

A chorus of indignant influential voices can be heard suddenly as the CBI appears to be closing in on the main culprits of the conspiracy that led to the extrajudicial killing of 19 years old Mumbra girl, Ishrat Jehan along with three others on 15 June 2004 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat and in all likelihood is set to indict Special Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Mr. Rajendra Kumar. (The Tehelka Exposé)

The cacophony gets shriller the moment there is speculation, based on media reports, that there appears to be a possibility that the trail may lead to the doors of Mr. Narendra Modi, three-times Chief Minister of Gujarat, Hindutva strongman and poster boy of a section in the media who finds only political conspiracies in any accusations against him.

To one such eminent columnist, Mr. Ashok Malik, even any conjecture that Modi could have done wrong is “Dangerous Logic”.

Writing in The Asian Age (30 June 2013), Mr. Malik claims:

“What does one make of the selective leaks and the motivated reportage in sections of the media on the Ishrat Jehan case? It is fairly clear there is a systematic and downright political attempt to implicate Narendra Modi, the Gujarat chief minister, in still further controversy, without the legal case necessarily getting anywhere.”

The insinuation is clear: That the Congress led government at the Centre, through the abuse of the investigative powers of the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI), is seeking to implicate Mr. Modi in the conspiracy to have Ishrat Jehan and  three others killed in cold blood in a false encounter in a bid to stop him from gunning for power at the Centre in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He, in fact, provocatively claims that the ‘legal case necessarily isn’t getting anywhere’.

Unfortunately, the facts dispute Mr. Malik’s claims substantially.

That Ishrat Jehan and three others were killed in a fake encounter isn’t the conclusion of the Congress led government at the Centre, nor even of an inquiry instituted by it. It was at first, the conclusion of the Court of the Ahmedabad Metropolitan Magistrate on 7 September 2009 (more than 5 years after the incident), based on the findings of a 247 pages Judicial Inquiry Report, ironically ordered by the Gujarat Government led by Modi.

Inevitably, the Gujarat Government challenged the findings before the Gujarat High Court, only to be faced with a deeper investigation by a Special Investigative Team (SIT) constituted by the Gujarat High Court and monitored by it. On 21 November 2011, The SIT concluded in its Final Report to the HC that Ishrat Jehan and three others were indeed killed in cold blood in a case of custodial killing made to appear as an encounter.

On 1 December, 2011, the Gujarat High Court passed orders for fresh FIRs to be filed against those found guilty by the SIT probe and handed over the probe to the CBI. In a detailed order, the Bench recorded 12 reasons for not letting any state agency of Gujarat to continue with the probe and why it was handing it over to the CBI. Since then, the Gujarat High Court routinely monitored the progress of the investigation and even pulled up the Central Agency whenever it found it’s pace slackening. As recently as 15 March 2013, the Gujarat High Court bench of Justices Jayant Patel and Abhilasha Kumari monitoring the probe expressed satisfaction about the progress made by CBI in the investigation of Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case. It is in fact the High Court which had ordered the CBI to file chargesheets by 4 July 2013.

Does it, therefore, appear that the legal case has not necessarily got anywhere, as Mr. Malik claims?

Also, in order for the CBI’s investigative powers to be abused by the Congress to implicate Mr. Modi, it must be acting through the bench of the Gujarat High Court that is monitoring the CBI. ‘A dangerous logic’ indeed.

I have also been left wondering by Mr. Malik as to why did CBI wait this long to fabricate evidence and plant the same in pliable media to implicate Mr. Modi when they could have done so earlier to prevent him from becoming the Chief Minister for the third time?

Mr. Malik further writes:

“Yet, it is not as if those 191 cases — or 400 cases (of fake encounters), depending on which number one fancies — are the subject of public activism or that politicians and police officers from several states are being targeted. The indignation is decidedly selective and limited to one or two cases in Gujarat. Logic is being stretched to suggest the chief minister and home minister fabricated an Intelligence Bureau report, masterminded the kidnapping of four innocent citizens, got them killed and pretended it was all part of defeating an assassination plot.”

Again, the insinuation is clear: That the outrage over the Ishrat Jehan fake encounter case isn’t because an innocent 19 year old girl was kidnapped, kept in illegal confinement and then murdered by those who are sworn to protect and uphold the law but because it gives the Congress a an opportunity to hurl accusations at Mr. Narendra Modi.

Leaving aside this ridiculous assumption that all who feel revolted by the idea of an innocent 19 year old girl belonging to a certain community being brutally killed to enhance someone’s political capital are enamoured by the Congress (hence opposed to Mr. Modi), can Mr. Malik explain where else did these fake encounters repeatedly involved elimination of alleged terrorists, belonging to a particular community, attempting to assassinate an all powerful Chief Minister?

Fake encounters and extrajudicial killings have become all too common in insurgency-affected Jammu & Kashmir, the North East or the Maoist affected districts of India. Can Mr. Malik explain as to which insurgency was raging in Gujarat for such repeated fake encounters to occur, not that even in the areas I mentioned it is acceptable by any standards?

I also hope Mr. Malik can explain to us as to why did LeT terrorists suddenly stopped coming after Mr. Modi altogether, once the Central Government changed hands from NDA to UPA and the stink of fake encounters started arising.

I can explain to Mr. Malik in blunt words why these particular fake encounters in Gujarat raises the heckles of many like me. It is because in no other instance, such fake encounters were cynically made an instrument to demonize a certain community and consolidate the political capital of hate which Mr. Modi has accumulated to now stake the claim to be our next Prime Minister. That may be acceptable to you Mr. Malik. It isn’t acceptable to me.

And, isn’t it the appropriate Court that will decide whether Mr. Modi or his deputy Amit Shah was party to the conspiracy? Why is the hurry to acquit them even before the Courts have had an opportunity to look at the evidence?

Mr. Malik is visibly pained that,

“An input of a Lashkar-e-Tayyaba assassination squad, comprising Ishrat Jehan and her accomplices, is being sought to be rubbished as made-up. An entire mythology of how the officer in question was close to Mr Modi across several years and several postings in several locations is being planted on whichever media practitioner is willing to play unquestioning stenographer. An officer on the verge of retirement is finding his entire career and reputation tarnished and mocked, without giving him an opportunity to answer.”

In his disquiet, Mr. Malik perhaps forgets that the CBI is placing the charges and the evidence before an appropriate court and not exactly summarily sentencing the senior ‘intelligence officer’. Also, isn’t Mr. Malik guilty of the playing the same unquestioning stenographer in accepting at face value the alleged ‘input of a Lashkar-e-Tayyaba assassination squad, comprising Ishrat Jehan and her accomplices’ in spite of no Courts having pronounced Ishrat to be a LeT militant?

Why is Mr. Malik mischievously silent on the fact that during the last hearing, the court refused to accept a CD and put it on record, which allegedly contained clinching evidence that the persons who were killed were terrorists, and directed them to submit it to CBI instead?

To Mr. Malik, the career and reputation of an intelligence officer accused of conspiracy of killing in cold blood an innocent young girl is somehow more important than the quest for truth and justice.

While mocking others of being ‘unquestioning stenographers’, Mr. Malik doesn’t restraint himself from distorting the truth, however. He writes:

“The issue goes beyond merely a battle between the CBI and the IB or even the prospects of individual officers. The manner in which a major assassination attempt against a top political leader is sought to be mocked and dismissed — despite the LeT embracing Ishrat Jehan and her accomplices as its “martyrs” in the days following their killing — speaks of an unconscionable irresponsibility.”

To Mr. Malik, somehow, the dubious claim of LeT is more reliable (a claim it later retracted) than the fact that the SIT did not find even a shred of evidence of Ishrat Jehan being involved with LeT even remotely. The NIA, similarly, is on record in its submission to the Gujarat High Court that David Hadley did not provided it with any evidence of Ishrat being a LeT terrorist.

What is also of no concern to Mr. Malik is that the disturbing consequences the perception of an innocent young Muslim girl being labeled a terrorist and then brutally murdered by the security apparatus, and then denial of justice, could have in further alienating a community and sowing seeds of seething resentment.

Mr. Malik is confident that, ‘this conflation of bazaar gossip with a rigorous legal process will continue till the 2014 elections, unless the CBI and its current leadership suddenly — and perhaps equally expediently — discover there is no case at all.’

Shall we let the appropriate court separate the hard evidence from the alleged bazaar gossip and decide whether a case exists or not, Mr. Malik?

Ignoring credible evidence as bazaar gossip to suit one’s argument can be equally dangerous logic.

How I became a “Most Wanted RAW Agent” !! – II

Tags

Assam Police, Criminal cases, Guwahati, Nilim Dutta, RAW

Crossing a dilapidated bridge on foot with my security detail in a severely conflict affected area in Chirang district, Western Assam.

I have, in “How I became a Most Wanted RAW Agent” – I, already explained how in the feverish imagination of a bunch of Assam Police officers and the media, I became a RAW agent with almost supernatural powers of being able to change form from my father to myself while jumping off a building.

Here, I shall explain how my family and I possess such supernatural powers to be omnipresent in cities thousands of kilometers apart or be able to live in hotels without leaving a trace in the guest registers or sign a single bill during our stays.

In order to do so, I produce below the FIR, word-for-word, of the case for which ASI Arun Baruah, the ‘Investigating Officer’ (IO) in this case from the Dispur PS, had gone on the night of 02 February 2013 to arrest the accused Shri Dulal Chandra Dutta but happened to arrest, for some inexplicable reason, his son instead, who happens to be yours truly.

Dispur P.S. Case No: 2432/2012 u/s 420/406/511 of IPC registered on 08/11/2012

To

The Officer-in-Charge

Dispur Police Station

Dispur, Guwahati

Sir,

I beg to inform you that Shri Dulal Chandra Dutta, resident of Rajabari, PS: Lichubari, Jorhat (Phone Nos: 092070 88850 and 092070 88852), along with his family, checked into our Hotel Nivedan, situated at Dispur Super Market on 18/02/2012 into room no 211 and lived there till 16/10/2012 when they left leaving the room locked and has not returned till today. Their total bill has come up to Rs. 5,48,275/- and they have paid an amount of Rs. 1,96,000.00 till 12.10.2012. They have not given us any information till today. We have come to know from our own inquiries that they are staying in a rented house in Rukminigaon. Whenever we have gone to there to ask for payments or to have the room vacated, they have been delaying it on one pretext or the other. We believe that they are trying to cheat us out of the due payments.

Therefore it is our humble prayer to you, kind Sir, to recover from them our due payments and have the room vacated.

Yours faithfully,

Anwar Hussain

Manager

Hotel Nivedan

The above FIR is dated 8/11/2012 and a case was registered on its basis the same day.

Thus, if the Assam Police is to be believed, as per the above FIR, a family lives in a hotel for 9 months and then one fine day disappears without a trace and the hotel’s management/proprietors waits for almost a month before informing the police?

That is besides the obvious question of why on earth would my family live in a hotel for 9 months, of all places, in Guwahati? And that too in one room?

Even more surprisingly, the family doesn’t leave behind even the slightest trace of their presence in their 9 months long stay. Let me explain. To the best of my knowledge, any guest, while checking into a hotel has to offer his/her valid IDs and sign the Guest Register. Barring minors, usually all members of the family who has checked in has to provide IDs. And there will also be inevitable bills signed during the stay, apart from CC TV footage of their presence. This Guest Register, in Guwahati, is mandatorily taken to the local police station every evening, thus giving the police information of guests residing in the hotel on any given day.

That is why, the complainant, could not even name any family members of Shri Dulal Chandra Dutta in the FIR, let alone offer any evidence of their stay there.

But that may be possible for families with supernatural powers. Let me explain.

In the FIRs of two other cases registered against me in the Dispur PS, and for which I was arrested, my crimes (or that of my family) were that of actually living in two other places in almost those same months.

These competing claims are as below:

Dispur PS Case No. 2432/2012 u/s 420/406/511 of IPC registered on 8 November 2012, claims Shri Dulal Chandra Dutta’s family lived in Hotel Nivedan from February-October 2012. Assuming that he is the same Dulal Chandra Dutta as my father, and that I have been arrested by the Dispur PS for this, I too have been living here.

Dispur PS Case No. 2770/2012 u/s 406/420 of IPC registered on 27 December 2012, claims that my family and I have been residing in Cottage #3, Housing Colony, Rukmininagar, Basistha Road, Guwahati – 781006 since 29 August 2012.

Dispur PS Case No. 233/2013 u/s 420/406 of IPC registered on 3 February 2013, on the other hand, claims that my family and I have been residing in yet another address since July 2012.

Last but not the least, I have been variously accused as not paying house rents or cabs I used in Delhi since March 2012 for months, by a very charming young lady in twitter whom I happen to know well (and whom I still hold no grudges against). I would consider her accusations as the most reliable evidence of my absence in Guwahati for a certain period of months. How could I be living for that very period in a hotel in Guwahati if I had been living in Delhi with her?

This just brings to my mind this dialogue, “Don ko pakadna mushkil nahi namumkin hai,” in a slightly modified form. Here “Don ko pakadna munkin tou hua, par woh kahan rehta tha janna namunkin hai.”

My family must have put Harry Potter to shame with its supernatural abilities.

My sister Smita with Raghu Rai and Commissioner, Upper Assam Division while crossing to Majuli at the height of floods in end of June 2012. I was naturally accompanying them on the trip.

Raghu Rai and I on the Brahmaputra on our crossing from Majuli to Nimatighat in Jorhat in July 2012.

Truth is, I flew back to Assam from Delhi in the last days of June 2012 on ‘official’ work, but not to Guwahati. (Even the boarding passes of every flight taken is anyway meticulously filed away and I can retrieve those whenever I need to, to prove a point). I was in upper Assam (Eastern Assam) for nearly a month when ethnic violence engulfed the BTAD districts of Kokrajhar and Chirang in 3^rd week of July 2012 in Western Assam, making me rush to the disturbed area soon, thereafter. Over the next 4-5 months, I spent a greater part of my time in Kokrajhar, Chirang and parts of Dhurbri, only occasionally returning to Guwahati or to Delhi. Even on the few days I managed to spend in Guwahati, I rarely had time to even go home. Where I was on any given day can not only be revealed by CDR of my mobile phones, but also debit/credit card usage, record of meetings with senior government officials, official commands assigning me adequate armed police personnel for my security cover in the districts and many more indisputable evidence.

Preparing to speak to a BBC team on the ethnic violence while camping at Bongaigaon, early September 2012. The one kneeling is Udit Kulshrestha. (@uditkulshrestha in twitter)

Apart from the above, teams from national and international media organisations, current MPs and national leaders from several national political parties actually found me on the ground in the violence-affected districts along with several members of my family, including my father Dulal Chandra Dutta there.

Addressing the foreign media on the ethnic violence in Assam at The Foreign Corespondents’ Club, New Delhi on 13 September, 2012. To my right is former Union Home Secretary Mr. G.K. Pillai and to left is Sanjoy Majumder of BBC who moderated the event.

And there are hundreds of hours of video footage and thousands of photographs to substantiate that.

But this is not all.

On the evening of 8 November 2012 (the day the case was registered), at about 4:30 pm, ASI Arun Baruah, along with a few armed police personnel from the Dispur PS had come to my bungalow in Guwahati, (Cottage #3, Housing Colony, Rukmininagar) that had been leased recently to set up my control room in Guwahati from which to administer and coordinate our ongoing relief operations and investigations into and documentation of the violence in Kokrajhar and Chirang. He informed me (falsely) that I had been named as an accused in the case I have mentioned here and that I will have to now go with him to the Dispur PS. When I demanded to see the FIR, he was evasive. A little more probing revealed that in fact it was my father who was actually named in the FIR. When I confronted him as to why would I need to go to the PS when I had nothing to do with the matter, he left in disappointment, but not before dropping hints that this will have consequences.

When I called up home and informed my father about the matter, he was incensed and went to the Dispur PS voluntarily a couple of hours later to find out why would he be named in a FIR. Significantly, even though he was the accused named in the FIR, that he couldn’t be detained or arrested should be indicative of the authenticity of the complaint.

Why was Shri Dulal Chandra Dutta, the named accused in the FIR not arrested? I have enough reasons to believe that it was not only because there wasn’t a shred of evidence to do so, but also because it was I who was actually sought to be implicated. And there is a lot more to this than I am revealing here. These are being placed before the appropriate court of law and it is inevitable that justice shall be done.

What must not be overlooked is that the case was registered just a day before the killings in Kokrajhar and Chirang resumed on 10 November 2012, something which I have been, on record, warning about. I had already become a disturbing presence to many who didn’t want lakhs of those dispossessed by violence to return to their homes and I have been a persistent obstacle to their designs.

I had to be somehow deterred from intervening in the unfolding events in the BTAD districts, even if it meant arresting me in a case, where I wasn’t even named as an accused and on charges of not paying the bills in a hotel I never set foot in. A couple of months after this case was registered, that is exactly what happened.

There are just four more things I would like to point out:

First, I couldn’t have been a fugitive from justice, as claimed by the police or the media if the Assam Police itself assigned me armed personnel for my security cover, and when I was in touch with the senior-most officials entrusted with the law & order situation in the state.

Second, the FIR even in this case doesn’t mention anywhere about anyone claiming to be a RAW Agent. In fact, this FIR doesn’t even name me. Why did the media play this up again and again?

Third, the FIR also doesn’t make any accusations of any bounced cheques, unlike claims made in the media.

Fourth, I would humbly request anyone who claims these allegations to be true to try and stay in a Guwahati hotel, without providing his/her valid IDs, without signing the Hotel Guest Register, without paying the hotel in advance, let alone running up a credit of several lakhs over a few months.

In the matter of accusations made by the Assam Police regarding non-payment of any bills of Hotel Nivedan, thus, I rest my case.

But there are more revelations to be made.

(To be continued)

How I became a “Most Wanted RAW Agent” !! – I

Tags

Assam Police, Guwahati, Nilim Dutta, RAW

This picture will have to suffice till I get one more convincing of being a mythical raw agent.

If the Assam Police and a section of the media is to be believed, on 2 February 2013, the Guwahati City Police had arrested a ‘most wanted fraudster’ who had apparently, among other allegations, posed as a RAW agent, defrauded people of lakhs of rupees and was in the habit of disappearing without paying hotel bills.

“Most Wanted Fraudster Arrested in Guwahati,” screamed The Times of India headline.

“Top columnist, top fraud? The curious case of Nilim Dutta,” asked Firstpost.India.

“Did leading media outlets like BBC, Australian TV, NDTV, Indian Express and Tehelka fall for a fraudster variously posing as political analyst and strategic expert on Assam?” asked Rediff.com

“Dutta would have managed to escape had he not hurt himself in both his legs while jumping out of the first-floor balcony when the police raided the flat which he had taken on rent,” reported The Indian Express.

I have been told, that “Nilim Dutta” trended for 4 days on twitter.

But is the truth what the police or media claimed to be?

What happened on the night of 2 February 2013?

It was a little before 9 pm on a Saturday, 2^nd February 2013. I was in a first floor flat in an apartment block in Six Mile in Guwahati. It was newly built and I had arrived there in the afternoon to oversee the 3 bedroom flat being comfortably furnished. In the past few months, many associates & colleagues, not based in Guwahati, had travelled in an out of the city on assignments in connection with the ethnic conflict in Kokrajhar and Chirang and it became essential to put up a ‘transit camp’ for them in the city where we could also meet and confer on the agenda at hand. The flat had just been taken a few days earlier on lease and was being readied to accommodate them whenever they were in Guwahati, which was quite frequently then.

My mother and sisters arrived there later in the evening to assist me with readying the flat, particularly in setting up the kitchen. As it appeared we shall be late getting back home, we ordered food and decided to have dinner there. Meanwhile, I had been tweeting and working in one of the bedrooms when a little before 9 pm the doorbell rang. I believe my mother opened the door.

What I heard was a loud altercation followed by a scream from my mother. Alarmed, I stepped out into the corridor leading to the hall just in time to see  a bunch of policemen rushing in and ASI Arun Baruah (who had met me once earlier) physically assaulting my mother. As she fell down on the floor from the force of the policeman’s blow, bleeding from her mouth, my sisters too rushed to her side. Naturally, I was incensed and physically tried pushing out the policemen from the flat. This led to a brief but vicious scuffle and ASI Arun Baruah and another policeman (I later found out his identity in the PS) pushed me off from the first floor landing, just outside the entrance to the flat, down on to the concrete floored basement car parking. ASI Arun Baruah shouted, “Let the ******* die. We can claim he tried to escape and killed himself in the fall.” I did hang on for a few moments, not letting go of the policemen as I had grabbed them too, but unable to get a foothold as I dangled there and and as my grip was prised away, I plummeted down, landing in the basement below bare feet and with my heels hitting the concrete first. Both my heel bones (I thought ankles when I tweeted) were instantly shattered and I perhaps passed out for a minute or so. When I regained consciousness, I found kicks and blows, including from a wooden stick, raining on me and that I couldn’t stand due to excruciating pain in my legs. I tried to protect my head by trying to ward off the blows as best as I could with my bare hands. The effort did help but left me with a fractured ring finger of my right hand. This is when my mother and sisters physically tried to prevent the policemen from assaulting me. Arun Baruah was shouting and threatening, “I will shoot you all,” to which my mother shouted back, “I dare you to.” The shouts and commotion of the continuing scuffle also brought on our neighbours to the scene. The gathered crowd was incensed seeing the policemen assaulting a badly injured man lying on the ground and three women who were trying to prevent them from doing so. There wasn’t a single policewoman who had accompanied them. As the crowd surrounded the policemen and angrily intervened, the policemen backed off momentarily and Arun Baruah frantically rang the Officer-in-Charge of Dispur Police Station to send reinforcements, including women police constables. It was only then, after about 15 minutes, that Officer-in-Charge of the Dispur PS arrived with women constables and reinforcements.

The moment the policewomen arrived, they straight away rushed to assault my mother and sisters again, while a couple of policemen tried to drag me, grabbing my hands, to one of their vehicles, cursing that I was feigning injury. As the gathered crowd of neighbours once again stepped in angrily, the police desisted from any further assault and tried to take me to the Dispur PS, this time lifting and carrying, me as they should an injured man who couldn’t walk, to one of their waiting patrol vehicles. My sisters refused to let them take me alone and voluntarily accompanied me to the Dispur PS.

As I was being driven out from the apartment block in a police “Sumo”, I took my tab from my sister, Smita, and tweeted my last tweets of 2 February 2013, making public the assault and my impending arrest.

When we reached the Dispur PS, we saw that there was already a crowd of media persons and TV crew from the local channels. This makes it evident that my arrest was a planned affair and the media blitz was a part of the design against me. While the media persons were being enthusiastically briefed on my sins and how prized a catch I was, the scene inside the PS was one of utter bedlam as I berated them and questioned their unlawful action. This resulted in further assaults on us and another scuffle inside the PS ensued, which abruptly ended with the arrival of SSP Anand Prakash Tiwari in a hideously purple shirt and chocolate brown trousers. My sister, Smita, angrily confronted him and demanded to know how could such illicit acts of brutality be unleashed? Trying to calm her down several times and failing, he escaped to the DSP’s chamber and soon made a couple of constables to carry me and sit me down on the sofa there, where another senior city police official was present with SSP Tiwari. In fact, he happened to be an old acquaintance and one who was instrumental in another spate of malafide prosecution against me a decade ago. I taunted him asking what happened to those cases and why the courts chose to either acquit me in a speedy trial or quash those. Refusing to get into an altercation with me, SSP Tiwari asked the Officier-in-Charge of Dispur PS to immediately take me to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital (GMCH) for treatment. That was the last I saw of him in person. Even though there were many triumphant claims that SSP Tiwari had allegedly made to the media, in the footage from Prime News I only saw him saying that were allegations but it was too early to say anything. I was a celebrity of sorts by the time I reached Guwahati Central Jail next evening.

If the trauma and rage made me oblivious to my injuries and the excruciating pain initially, by the time I reached GMCH at about midnight, my condition deteriorated and I started nauseating. I was put on an IV drip and then taken for X-Rays and CT Scans of the many injuries I had sustained from the fall and assault. Both my legs were then encased in a plaster cast to just below the knees. My sisters, who too were brought to GMCH were already taken back to the PS. At about 4 am on the morning of 3 February 2013, the police surprisingly took me back to the PS with all my medical records even though I wasn’t even in a state to sit up. There at the PS, I was laid down on a bench. My sister Smita sat down cushioning my head on her lap, while Janaki did the same for my plaster-encased legs. I fell asleep under the effect of painkillers and sedatives for about a couple of hours perhaps.

As the morning of 3 February 2013 stirred to life, the next episode of the drama began with the arrival of ASI Arun Baruah at about 9 am. He imperiously declared that there will be a ‘flood’ of cases. I was promised at least three-dozen cases and that it would be years before I will be able to get out. He also gloated that the entire ‘world’ is now condemning me, having come to know my dark deeds, which he dared to expose before the media and arrest me for. We still didn’t know exactly what we have been detained and were now going to be arrested for, although I began to have inkling about it. There was a stream of senior police officials who came to ‘take a look’ at their ‘prized catch’. A few indulged us in polite chit-chat, while a few others, whom I have personally known, were visibly embarrassed and said they found this whole thing inexplicable. They were the ones who informed us that our ‘friends’ across the country have kept the phone lines buzzing demanding to know what has happened.

Then there were clueless reporters who swallowed all the lies Arun Baruah and a few others at the PS were dishing out. None of them bothered to check the FIRs or ask the police any searching questions. The only question most of them asked me was whether I really was a RAW official and if not, why did I claim to be one. I wasn’t aware till then that none of the FIRs had even a word of such accusations against me but then this was so stupid an allegation that after a while I refused to take it with any seriousness. Replying from the bench I had been lying on, I told a young lady reporter who had asked me the same question that I was a victim of conspiracy and turf war and that this was done to malign me and prevent me from becoming the Secretary, RAW in future. She nodded solemnly with wide-eyed wonder and furiously scribbled in her note pad. Such a farce indeed was the state of things on the Sunday morning of 3 February, 2013.

At about 11 am, however, all reporters and hangers on were abruptly shooed away from the room as a dignified, neatly dressed middle-aged gentleman entered the room. He had an air of unmistakable authority and the policemen in the room scrambled to their feet, some throwing up a hurried salute. He glanced at me for a few moments, before sitting down in a chair with his back towards me and asked for the FIRs/case diaries of the cases that have been registered against me. He quickly read through a slim sheaf of papers and asked Arun Baruah, “But I was told he has claimed himself to be a RAW official? Where is that case?” Arun Baruah replied that he has heard that it is all over  the internet and that I have a website where I have even put in my designation as ‘Director of RAW’. On being asked for any printouts etc of the said website, Arun Baruah pointed to me and said that he was about to begin his interrogation to obtain all information about it. The gentleman then turned his chair towards me and asked me how I had sustained my injuries and whether I had tried to escape jumping off from a building. I replied in the negative and said it was Arun Baruah and another who pushed me off. This was met with a howl of protest and accusations from the policemen that I was lying.

The gentleman then asked me why I had claimed to be the ‘Director of RAW’. I replied firmly that I had not, and that if there was any website where this was claimed as such, it was ‘news’ to me and I certainly wasn’t aware of one. I told him that I am also a published columnist in the national print media, and a Google search would instantly reveal my real identity. How could I even claim to be the ‘Director of RAW’? I told him that I can show it to him instantly if I was handed back my ‘tab’ which Arun Baruah had taken away from my sister the previous night (we were yet to be formally arrested till then and a seizure list wasn’t yet prepared). He replied that they shall have my tab examined later but I can show him from his own smartphone and extended it to my hand. Quickly, over the next 10-15 minutes, I surfed using his phone and took him through much of the online content about my writings etc and my blog, Chanakya’s Neeti where my bio was unmistakably available to anyone who cared to check. He then asked a few questions about the Strategic Research & Analysis Organisation and my work. He took my tab from Arun Baruah and quickly scrolled through my call lists to check whether what I said about people I claimed to know was substantiated. A policeman interrupted us, politely inviting the gentleman to sit in the DSP’s chamber. He brusquely dismissed the policeman saying he wanted to get everything from me straight. He then asked me a few more questions, important ones, regarding my intervention in the situation arising out of the ethnic conflict in the BTC districts of Kokrajhar and Chirang and appeared satisfied. It was he, who first informed me that all hell has broken loose outside and that media was having a field day as police, including the SSP Guwahati, has broken to the media that the they have apprehended a ‘most wanted’ criminal who has for long been posing as a senior RAW official and defrauding people. It was also the same gentleman who told me that there were actually only 2 cases against me till that moment and both looked extremely dubious. He said that his sole interest in the matter had arisen from the allegations that I had claimed to be a senior RAW or intelligence official and from my involvement in sensitive political issues. He stood up and extended his hand to me and as we shook hands, said to me, “Young man, either someone has made a big screw-up somewhere or you have screwed someone nasty rather badly to have made such enemies. I will see to it that the intelligence agencies aren’t unnecessarily dragged into this mess. Also, you have some staunch well wishers and I am sure everything will end well. Take care.” Saying that, he turned to Arun Baruah, and with barely hidden contempt, coldly told him to inform his superiors not to waste his time again with stupid matters. He then strode out of the room without looking back, leaving Arun Baruah and the rest of the policemen ashen faced and rather subdued. The gentleman did not reveal to me who he was but I could sense that the shit had unmistakably hit the fan.

I began to comprehend that all the ‘strong evidence’ that I had allegedly claimed to be a ‘senior RAW official’, and which the police triumphantly revealed to the media, was actually my biographical information on several webpages that I was the “Executive Director of the Strategic Research & Analysis Organisation.” Unfortunately for them, that indeed is true, still. Unfortunately for them, the Strategic Research & Analysis Organisation also doesn’t come under the Cabinet Secretariat or report to the Prime Minister. I was astounded (and still am) as to how could someone be so incredibly stupid?

Such stupidity, however, isn’t unique. Even during Binayak Sen’s trial, the prosecution, in their effort to portray the Sens as part of a sinister international terror network, produced in court an e-mail Ilina Sen had written to a Walter Fernandes of the ISI. Never mind that the said ISI happened to be the Indian Social Institute in Delhi and Walter Fernandes an eminent sociologist, scholar and activist. And that could happen to someone of even Binayak Sen’s stature. But closer home, there are many more instances when such attempts have been made by the police, as I have discovered with incontrovertible evidence, which I shall now slowly reveal over the next few weeks.

What happened to me wasn’t a humongous ‘screw-up’ but a sinister attempt to implicate me in false cases and tarnish my public image, distorting or even manufacturing facts. Am I to believe that even senior police officials were so stupid to mistake the Strategic Research & Analysis Organisation for RAW? What is pathetic is that the media swallowed the lies doled out by the police hook, line and sinker, without bothering to verify what the actual allegations turned out to be as presented to the court for our remand.

With the bubble of RAW allegation self-destructing badly, the police was desperate to nail me in whatever possible way, to ensure that I remained behind bars for at least sometime, denying me the opportunity to counter the media trial being conducted against me with their not so insubstantial assistance.

So what was that I was finally arrested for?

I reproduce below, word-for-word the FIRs of the cases which I was arrested in. The terrible grammar, composition and stupid spelling errors aren’t at all mine, as they have been reproduced here unedited.

Dispur P.S. Case No. 230/2013 u/s 333/326/294/34 of IPC registered on 03/02/2013 

To

The Officer-in-Charge

Dispur Police Station

Dispur, Guwahati

Dated: 3 February 2013

Sir,

I beg to respectfully inform you that I, today on 02/02/2013, at about 8:10 pm, with regard to Dispur P.S. case No. 2432/2012 u/s 420/406 IPC went to arrest the accused Shri Dulal Chandra Dutta who had been absconding for a long period after receiving secret information that he has been hiding in the rented flat of one Mujibur Rehman, resident of Juripar, in the 3^rd Block, 1^st flore, Room No 108 (Pan Enclave) taking along colleague staff  HC B. Borah, HG Koikabad Ahmed, Women Cobra Party SI Junali Das, WPC Manju Kalita, WPC Biju Moni Phukan and UBC B.K. Barman. The moment we arrived at his flat, the lights of the house were switched off and even though the accused tried to escape through the back door, jumping from the 1st flore, we were able to tactfully capture him. He was injured in both his legs as a result of jumping from the flat and he is son of the accused, Nilim Dutta.

At that moment, the mother of the accused Smti. Mina Dutta, his wife Smti. Sunita Dutta, and their maid servant Smti. Janaki Bodo prevented us from carrying out our official duty and while trying to prevent us from taking the accused Shri Nilim Dutta into custody, not only seriously injured HC B. Borah, WPC Manju Kalita, UBC B.K. Barman by biting them, but also instigated the neighbours against us and verbally abused us using foul language. Even so, we managed to bring the accused to the police station. Accused Smti. Mina Dutta ran away from the crime scene and accused Nilim Dutta was sent off to the GMCH and treated.

Hence a case should be registered against the accused Nilim Dutta, Sunita Dutta, Mina Dutta and Janaki Bodo and necessary action should be taken.

Yours faithfully,

Arun Baruah

03/02/2013

Let me now point out the difficulties in this piece of fiction.

If the Assam Police is to be believed, as per the FIR, the accused Shri Dulal Chandra Dutta, who happens to be a fugitive from justice, besides being my father, jumps off from the 1^st floor to escape the police and on hitting the ground and breaking his legs, magically turns into his own son, who happens to be yours truly, whom the police manages to ‘tactfully capture’.

Please note the FIR says, “The moment we arrived at his flat, the lights of the house were switched off and even though the accused tried to escape through the back door, jumping from the 1st flore, we were able to tactfully capture him. He was injured in both his legs as a result of jumping from the flat and he is son of the accused, Nilim Dutta.”

Also, what the Assam Police is still unable to explain is, if I was not even the accused in the Dispur P.S. Case No. 2432/2012 u/s 420/406 of IPC, why did they ‘capture’ me?

But these aren’t the only difficulties they can’t wish away.

With Bhupen Bora, Parliamentary Secy, Home, Government of Assam and Haider Hussain, former editor, Asomiya Pratidin on Mrinal Talukdar’s prime time talkshow ‘Proxongokrome’ on DY365 discussing sensitive matters related to the BTAD violence on 16 Nov 2012.

I wasn’t a fugitive from justice. As recently as the evening of 16 November 2012, I appeared on the live TV debate on DY365 along with Bhupen Bora, who happens to be the Parliamentary Secretary in charge of Home for Government of Assam, and who played a instrumental role in dealing firmly with the law & order situation in Kokrajhar and Chirang arising out of the ethnic violence there. More importantly, I was in almost daily contact with the top echelons of government responsible for law & order situation there, through meetings in persons, telephonic conversations and, for record, through e-mails.

That being the reality, why would I even jump from the 1^st floor of a building to escape the police?

And since I did not jump from the 1^st floor of the building to escape the police, how were my heels shattered from a fall?

But if in case I really was the one who injured his legs from the fall after jumping off the 1^st floor of the building, why was I then arrested in this case u/s 333 & 326 which applies to “voluntarily causing grievous hurt to deter public servant from his duty” and “voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means” respectively?

The FIR also names as accused my mother Smti. Mina Dutta, Smti. Janaki Bodo, and a non-existent wife, Smti. Suniti Dutta (surprisingly again, my sister Smita Dutta was arrested instead of my mythical wife Suniti Dutta) who, as claimed by the FIR, had seriously injured the policemen and policewomen by ‘biting’ them.

Thus if the Assam Police is to be believed, as per their own FIR, three unarmed women inflicted ‘grievous wounds’ on three of their able bodied personnel by non-existent ‘dangerous weapons’? Or are the teeth of my mother and sisters the ‘dangerous weapons’ with which such ‘grievous injuries’ were inflicted on the police personnel that there is no trace of even a medical record of the injuries or wounds?

If the Assam Police is to be believed, as per their own FIR, one of the accused, Smti. Mina Dutta, who happens to be my mother, after inflicting grievous wounds on the police personnel managed to escape being ‘tactfully captured’ unlike I was.  Thus, if claims of the police is to be believed, a frail, 65 year old woman suffering from congenital heart condition (ASD) and profusely bleeding from brutal police assault can inflict grievous injuries on three well built police personnel with non-existent dangerous weapons, unless those turns out to be her teeth.

The Assam Police must have been mightily scared of her as they still failed to arrest her when she went to the police station the next day, on 3 February 2013, to file FIRs against the erring police personnel (which the police, again unlawfully, refused to register) or went to meet her children in court when they were taken there to be produced before the judicial magistrate. They also, perhaps out of fear of being bitten again, failed to arrest my father, Shri Dulal Chandra Dutta too, who accompanied her, and who happened to be the accused whom the police had gone to arrest in the first place.

If this isn’t malafide prosecution what is?

But what was the Dispur P.S. case No. 2432/2012 u/s 420/406 IPC for which ASI Arun Baruah went to arrest the accused Shri Dulal Chandra Dutta who happens to be my father?

Continued in:

How I became a “Most Wanted RAW Agent” !! – II

Were Bangladeshis really responsible for the violence in the BTC districts in Assam?

Tags

Assam, Bangladeshi, Bodos, BTAD, Chirang, ethnic clash, illegal immigrants, Kokrajhar, Muslims

Children of impoverished Muslim families living in squalid conditions after being displaced by the recent spate of violence.

This article was first published in Eclectic Times, September 2012 issue.

The most vigorously propagated ‘reason’ for the recent spate of violence in the BTC districts, beginning with Kokrajhar, is that it has been the result of rampant illegal immigration of Bangladeshi nationals into the Bodo areas and widespread encroachment on their land. This has been the opinion articulated by many influential functionaries, from an Election Commissioner of India in an op-ed in The Indian Express to the former Home Minister of India in the floor of the Lok Sabha. But how accurate is this perception?

Let us begin by first examining the nature of demographic transformation the BTC districts of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and Udalguri have witnessed since the Census of India 1951, and then see if the conclusions support the above perceptions.

Source: Census of India 2011, Provisional Population Totals – Assam: Paper 1 of 2011, Annexure 3, table 2, Page 34.

Table 1 represents the Percentage Decadal Variation in Population since 1951 as per successive Censuses in the BTC districts of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and Udalguri which were formed subsequent to the Bodo Peace Accord in 2003 out of the Scheduled Tribe majority, Bodo dominated areas of the existing districts of Dhubri, Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Barpeta, Nalbari, Kamrup (Rural) and Darrang.

It would be immediately noticeable that between 1951 and 1991, the BTC districts had a noticeably higher decadal growth rate of population than even the presently Muslim majority districts like Dhubri and Barpeta. But it is unlikely that the higher growth rates of population were contributed either by the Muslims of immigrant origin or even illegal immigrants. It would be evident from the fact that even in 2001, the districts of Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Nalbari and Darrang, out of which much of the territorial area of BTC was carved out, Muslims had constituted just 20.3, 38.5, 21.3 and 35.5 percent of the population respectively. When the BTC districts were carved out of them, it was inevitable that the percentage of Muslim population in the newly created districts of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and Udalguri went down even further.

Table 1 further show that the decadal growth rates population in the areas out of which BTC districts were formed further declined between 1991-01 and in the last decade, during which these districts were formed into separate territorial entities, growth rate declined even further, Kokrajhar showing a noticeably low of only 5.19%.

The above empirical evidence certainly doesn’t support any claims of rampant illegal immigration of Bangladeshis into these BTC districts as neither the population growth rates have been ‘abnormally’ high nor have the percentage of Muslim population gone up in any alarming way at all.

There is, however, more empirical evidence refuting large scale encroachment of land. The districts of Kokrajhar and Chirang, where the violence have compelled above 4 lakhs to flee their homes and take shelter in relief camps, have among the lowest densities of population still in 2011, being 280 and 244 persons per square kilometre respectively, whereas neighbouring Dhubri and Bongaigaon districts have a population density of 1171 and 425 persons per square kilometres.

Immigration has been a phenomenon the Brahmaputra valley has long been witness to, and over centuries immigrants and natives have mingled and assimilated to create the composite Assamese identity. In the period since the mid 1800s, the Bengali Muslim peasants of erstwhile East Bengal became the largest group of people to have migrated into Assam. The sizeable Muslim population, but Assamese speaking now, residing in the lower Assam districts are inevitably the descendents of those immigrants. In the fractious exclusionary politics that has however taken root in Assam over the past decades, it yields political dividends to keep many of these Muslims labelled as Bangladeshis and blame them for every perceivable ill that beset us. It is time we re-examined facts to differentiate them from fiction.

Will the Honourable Election Commissioner care to answer a few hard questions on his opinion of the Kokrajhar riots?

Tags

Adivasis, Assam, Bangladeshi, Bodos, Election Commissioner of India, Ethnic clashes, Immigrant Muslims, Kokrajhar

“Don’t blame the immigrant” – The op-ed in The Indian Express, 3 August 2012 as a rebuttal ‘in print’ to the  Election Commissioner.

Opinions expressed by high constitutional functionaries shouldn’t be taken lightly, even if they are purported to be ‘personal’. And when such opinions are on an unfolding human tragedy and they tend to only bolster deep rooted prejudices, those can’t be left unquestioned.

Shri Harishankar Brahma, the Honourable Election Commissioner of India, expressed his opinion on what caused the Kokrajhar riots in The Indian Express, How to Share Assam, not only squarely blaming illegal Bangladeshi immigrants for the violence, but also hinting that the illegal immigrants being ‘Muslims’ perhaps raises the enormity of the threat manifold.

I have a few hard questions to ask.

The Honourable Election Commissioner of India writes,

The recent ethnic clashes between Hindu Bodos and Muslim immigrants, which occurred in the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts of lower Assam (BTAD), were unfortunate. However, the clashes were not wholly unexpected. The question that is generally asked is: why did it take a few decades to occur in the first place? Assam has been virtually sitting on a huge tinderbox.

The stress on ‘Hindu’ Bodos and ‘Muslim’ immigrants would make one believe that this is a Hindu-Muslim communal clash, with the ‘Muslim’ immigrants being the usual suspects in fomenting tensions and resultant violence. If this is so, would the Honourable Election Commissioner care to explain why were there clashes between ‘Hindu’ Bodos and ‘not at all Muslim’ Adivasis in Kokrajhar since early 1990s which have left thousands of Adivasis still living in relief camps after one and a half decades, unable forever to return to their homes?

It would be pertinent to point out that these Adivasis, mostly Santhals and Oraons, aren’t descendents of those the British brought to Assam as tea-garden labourers. Many of the Adivasis of Kokrajhar are descendents of those who were exiled by the British from their homeland for rising up in rebellion in what is known in history as the Santhal Rebellion. The Adivasis weren’t illegal immigrants nor were their numbers multiplying alarmingly to pose a threat to the Bodos. Why were they massacred then in some of the bloodiest spates of ethnic violence of the 90s directed against non-Bodos?

Also, if illegal Bangladeshi ‘Muslim’ immigrants were the sole cause for turning Assam into a tinderbox, why have many ‘Hindu’ Bodos lost their lives in the hands of ‘Hindu’ Bodos (or were the Christians?) themselves in ugly fratricidal wars? (I was an official invitee to the first death anniversary of late Binneswar Brahma, President of Bodo Sahitya Sabha and one among the many stalwarts who died in this fratricidal war)

The Honourable Election Commissioner further writes,

Any knowledgeable person in Assam knows well enough that migration into the state started during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

That the migration of impoverished Bengali Muslim peasants from East Bengal into the British province of Assam began in the late 1800s and continued well into the present day is a well documented historic fact.   The Honourable Election Commissioner’s claims are as factually untenable as they are historically inaccurate. It is important to understand that the immigrants and natives have lived cheek-by-jowl for over a century and in spite of occasional frictions, hostility between the communities isn’t such that bloodshed is inevitable.

The Honourable Election Commissioner further writes,

It has been alleged by knowledgeable persons that out of the 27 districts in Assam, 11 of them are going to be Muslim majority districts once the 2011 census figures, religion-wise, are published by the census authorities.

I fail to understand why should 11 districts of Assam becoming “Muslim majority” be a cause for alarm. Is it because it is implicit that these districts are becoming “Muslim majority” by virtue of illegal immigration? Interestingly, the Election Commissioner himself admits that there are only about 1.5 lakhs D or doubtful voters in Assam, not really a significant total given the size of Assam’s electorate. Where is the proverbial vote bank of illegal ‘Muslim’ immigrants then?

But the very same census figures would show a declining decadal growth rate of population in Assam and the language report would show that those districts which would perhaps turn “Muslim majority” would also show an overwhelming “Assamese majority” as well. Has the Honourable Election Commissioner cared to dwell on this complexity?

Would it still be a problem if these districts turned “Muslim majority’ on the strength of Muslims who have legitimately settled in Assam and have slowly assimilated into the native culture and soil adopting Assamese as their language?

The Honourable Election Commissioner is firm in his belief that,

The present ethnic clashes between the two communities can be directly attributed to the aforementioned facts of illegal migration into Assam.”

“It is a fact that the population in all these areas has been going up by leaps and bounds. It is not surprising, therefore, that there is a clash of interest in the sharing of natural resources such as forests, grazing grounds or even lands.

If the Honourable Election Commissioner cared to check some figures, he may be surprised to learn that between 1991-2001 Kokrajhar, where the ethnic clashes have begun, decadal growth rate of population has been just 14.49%. The corresponding figures for Assam and India are 18.92% and 21.54%.

He may be even more surprised to learn that between 2001-2011, the decadal growth rate of population for Kokrajhar was just 5.19% whereas that for Assam and India have been 16.93% and 17.64% respectively.

Do these figures for Kokrajhar indicate population increase in ‘leaps and bounds’?

Also the population density of Kokrajhar district is one of the lowest, being 266 and 280 persons per square kilometre for 1991-2001 and 2001-2011 respectively. In the geographically contiguous district of Dhubri, population densities have been 941 and 1171 persons per square kilometre for 1991-2001 and 2001-2011 respectively.

Do these figures indicate immense pressure on land due to encroachment by illegal ‘Muslim’ immigrants to the extent that it would trigger bloody ethnic clashes?

I would fervently like to believe that the opinions or conduct of a high constitutional functionary would be free from the prejudices of ethnicity or faith. Reflecting on the opinions expressed by the Honourable Election Commissioner, I have been sadly left with the feeling that they have been coloured by the prejudices of both and these will be further incessantly cited by those who would want to perpetuate these prejudices to deepen the existent ethnic and communal fissures. It doesn’t give me any pleasure to say so, but the Honourable Election Commissioner appears to have undermined the impartiality expected of his constitutional position.

Cannot face his truth? Stoop to slander !! – The classic troll tactic !!!

Tags

False allegations, Letters to the Editor, Nilim Dutta, Rebuttal, The Sentinel

There is a price for speaking unpleasant truth. There is also always a price for standing up to prejudice and intolerance. Slander is one of those. If my truth and logic cannot be demolished, those have to be attempted to be discredited by insidious character assassination and slander. Such attempts shall not only be responded to with contempt, but every lie shall be categorically demolished. Like I shall do now with one such slanderous allegation right here.

For some time, a ‘Letter to the Editor’ to one of Assam’s premier English dailies, ‘The Sentinel’ bringing some patently false and outrageous allegations against me has become the cause célèbre for a certain kind of twitterati – they are almost always anonymous (using assumed handles which are not real identities); they prostrate before a certain ‘God’ who hopes to be PM; they consistently bait Muslims; and among their other more laudable traits are threat of ‘rape’ to young Muslim women who would disagree or disregard their rants (Yes, screenshots and urls of those tweets have been meticulously kept ready).

So what is it they are so ecstatic about tweeting to the world against me? Let me quote the entire letter below, word-for-word.

The Sentinel, 3^rd August, 2010, Tuesday – Letters to the Editor

About ‘Commendable Initiative’

We offer our sincere thanks to Aiyushman Dutta for his write-up ‘‘Commendable Initiative’’ (The Sentinel, July 24, 2010). Mr Dutta has done a great service for the trust in publicly establishing the existence of ‘‘every single original print of Dr Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya’s short stories published since 1937’’ at one place.

Mr Dutta has not asked as to how the same were collected by Nilim Dutta of the so-called Strategic Research and Analysis Organization in his “Commendable Initiative”.

It should now be known to one and all that the said collection was an act of fraud by Nilim Dutta, who had approached Srimati Binita Bhattacharyya, wife of Late Dr Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya, with a written request for permission to publish a collection of short stories. He visited her house with a laptop and a scanner on several occasions. He listed the said short stories and lifted them all to be taken home for digitalization. These were never returned. His collections included said photographs, letters et al, including many important documents which probably we do not know. Then he came up with an agreement and offered a sum of Rs 20,000 as advance payment.

Smti Bhattacharyya in all good faith wanted to accept his proposal. The cheque bounced with the bank’s comment — “funds insufficient”. These were before the Dr Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya Memorial Trust came into being.

Smti Bhattacharyya intimated her decision to cancel the agreement by a registered post communication of January 20, 2008 and asked him to contact the Trust only, if so desired, for the intended publication. The letter came back with the postal remark — ‘‘not known’’. Nilim Dutta never showed his face to Smti Bhattacharyya thereafter, and now as Aiyushman Dutta has revealed, gloats over his ‘‘commendable initiative’’.

We thank Aiyushman Dutta for giving the trust a handle to make a move either with police help or through the appropriate legal authority. We possess the initial letters and copies of the said agreement along with the bounced cheque, if Aiyushman Dutta would like to go through them and see how the “commendable initiative” he has highlighted is fraught with blatant fraud.

Dr Dipankar Bhattacharyya,

Secretary,

Dr Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya Memorial Trust, Guwahati.

Click this here to go to The Sentinel webpage.  

So, what is the truth behind these allegations?

Before I demolish them as entirely fabricated and malicious lies, let me give a small background which would add more perspective.

Dr. Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya was one of the most eminent Indian authors who have left Assamese literature immeasurably enriched. Most know him for his novels ‘Yaruingam’ (for which he was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for 1961) and ‘Mrityunjay’ (for which he was awarded the Janapith Award in 1979). But his literary and intellectual legacy is vast, in fiction, non-fiction and verses and must be discussed some other time. He was also a prolific writer of Assamese short stories. Even though he had passed away in 1997, even now, fifteen years later, a single anthology which included the entire body of short stories he had written had been published.

It was, however, in 2006 that I received a proposal, through intermediaries, to consider publishing such an anthology. After initial discussions, I sent late Dr. Bhattacharyya’s wife, Smti. Binita Bhattacharyya a draft proposal which she approved. Accordingly, a copyright license agreement was signed with her 27^th July, 2007. Problem however arose immediately as there was not even a complete list of short stories, let alone the content of all of them. More over, questions of whether she actually owns copyrights of those arose immediately as most of the stories which we were given were actually published in a pathbreaking magazine (Ramdhenu) in which Dr. Bhattacharyya was employed as an Editor, hence copyright for his stories belonging to the publisher/owner of the magazine. To cut a long story short, the agreement never came into force. Instead, we had to begin searching for the stories. As we searched, we realized that late Dr. Bhattacharyya’s family possessed only a fraction of what he had written during his lifetime. Even valuable documents, like citations, were decomposing. Partially out of concern for the preservation of this rich literary heritage, and partially out of respect for Smti. Binita Bhattacharyya’s insistence, we indexed and digitized some of the valuable documents, original prints etc in her possession in-situ completely at our own expense. Only a few large ones which couldn’t be digitized there were taken away from her, with due receipts, and again returned. Naturally, as per procedure, we obtained signed receipts from her when such material was safely returned to her.

On the 14^th of October, 2007, on late Dr. Bhattacharyya’s 83^rd birth anniversary, Strategic Research & Analysis Organisation made a public announcement of it’s efforts at preserving his literary legacy. The function was attended by many literary stalwarts of the state and we were greatly applauded for the initiative. Significantly, the function was presided over by late Dr. Bhattacharyya’s elder brother, Shri Nalinidhar Bhattacharyya, another eminent poet as well as by eminent author Shri Atulananda Goswami and Journalists Radhikamohan Bhagawati. I mention their names because they are trustees of Dr Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya Memorial Trust. Also present were all family members of late Dr. Bhattacharyya. Surprisingly, none had any complaints about what we were doing. Instead, we were appreciated for the effort.

There was one person who was too busy to attend this function. That person was Dr. Dipankar Bhattacharyya. He is late Dr. Bhattacharyya’s eldest son.

The anthology never materialized because of copyright entanglements.

Let me now come to Dipankar Bhattacharyya’s allegations.

Dipankar Bhattacharyya’s allegation:

Then he came up with an agreement and offered a sum of Rs 20,000 as advance payment.

Smti Bhattacharyya in all good faith wanted to accept his proposal. The cheque bounced with the bank’s comment — “funds insufficient”. These were before the Dr Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya Memorial Trust came into being.

My rebuttal:

The agreement, as explained above, never became operational because Smti. Bhattacharyya couldn’t provide the full list of stories, nor could she prove ownership of copyright of all the stroies. It was indeed incumbent upon Smti. Bhattacharyya, to return the cheque. Could Dipankar Bhattacharyya explain why were they trying to fraudulently sell copyright of matter they didn’t own? And when the agreement fell through, why wasn’t the cheque returned? (There is a lot more dirty linen that I could wash in public but desist from doing so out of regard for late Dr. Bhattacharyya and Smti. Binita Bhattacharyya)

Dipankar Bhattacharyaa’s allegation:

Smti Bhattacharyya intimated her decision to cancel the agreement by a registered post communication of January 20, 2008 and asked him to contact the Trust only, if so desired, for the intended publication. The letter came back with the postal remark — ‘‘not known’’.

 My rebuttal:

I produce below the copy of the very letter Dipankar Bhattacharyya claims was never delivered to me (inference being, I provided false address) and returned with post mark ‘not known’ received by me on 19^th march 2008.

Could Dipankar Bhattacharyya please explain which genie delivered that letter to me?

He of course conveniently fails to mention that he even knew my residence.

Also, to be noted there is no mention of ‘bounced’ cheques in the letter below.

Dipankar Bhattacharyaa’s allegation:

He listed the said short stories and lifted them all to be taken home for digitalization. These were never returned. His collections included said photographs, letters et al, including many important documents which probably we do not know.

Nilim Dutta never showed his face to Smti Bhattacharyya thereafter.

My rebuttal:

On the evening of 23rd March 2008, I paid a visit to Smti. Binita Bhattacharyya once again, accompanied by my mother and sister, when I returned her a few newspaper broadsheets containing articles written by Dr. Bhattacharyya which I had taken away from her as they couldn’t be scanned ‘on-site’. Since all objects and articles that were ever given by Smti. Bhattacharyya to us had thus been returned, I obtained the mandatory receipt of the same wherein she stated –

“I do hereby acknowledge that all articles, including books, documents, photographs etc belonging to late Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya that I had lent to Shri Nilim Dutta of the Strategic Research & Analysis Organisation from my own personal collection have been duly returned to me.”

As usual, we chatted over tea and Smti. Bhattacharyya apologized for her inability to return me the cheque because “Dipankar had retained it with him” but promised to have it sent to me later. We are still waiting.

Copy of the signed receipt is provided below.

All of the above rebuttals along with the supporting documents were emailed to the editor of The Sentinel from my official email on 7^th August 2010 at 10:22 hours. Strangely, the rebuttal is nowhere to be found on the website now (Is there more to it than meets the eye?).

Dipankar Bhattacharyya acted intemperately. Made patently false allegations to slander. Naturally, whatever the consequences, he shall face those.

At the end, I have only this much to say:

Truth always has the strength to stand on its own.

Lies, however, still remain lies, even if tweeted 24×7 by cowards who don’t even have the courage to tweet using their own names.