Kingpin of AASU office attack held in Bengal village

Guwahati: Subodh Biswas, the president of Nagpur-based Hindu Bengali outfit Nikhil Bharat Bengali Udbastu Samannay Samiti (NBBUSS) who absconded from Assam on March 6, was arrested from West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district on Wednesday.

He has been evading the arrest after he allegedly instigated a mob to attack the office of All-Assam Students’ Union (AASU) at Silapathar in northern Assam’s Dhemaji district.

Security agencies, which were chasing Subhas Biswas, told this newspaper, “He was arrested with one of his associates Subhash Biswas from Bongaon village area under Bagdah police station in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal — close to India-Bangladesh international border.”

Informing that a team of CID has reached the place to take over the custody of Mr Biswas, the police said that CID has asked for five-days transit remand.

The AASU, which has been agitating and demanding the arrest of NBBUSS president, has locked horns with chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal for the alleged failure of police in nabbing Subodh Biswas.

An unruly mob of NBBUSS supporters had ransacked the AASU office on March 6. What hurt the Assamese most was that the mob had damaged photographs of Assam’s legendary singer-composer Bhupen Hazarika, the doyen of Assamese film-making and noted litterateur Jyotiprasad Agarwala, shahid bedi — which was erected in memory of 855 martyrs of the anti-foreigners’ agitation of the early 1980s, and gamosa, which is a unique identity of the Assamese society.

The police has already arrested more than 20 persons who were the part of procession and found to have been involved in attacking the AASU office at Silapthar.

The NBBUSS was instrumental in organising rallies and protests in the state against alleged harassment of Bengali Hindus on the suspicion that they were illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.