New Delhi: Priyada Gogoi, mother of Akhil Gogoi, the peasant rights group from Assam – Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) – has been on an indefinite hunger strike since December 20 demanding the immediate release of her son from the custody of the National Investigative Agency (NIA).

Local news reports quoting her neighbours said an ailing Priyada Gogoi has been sitting on a hunger strike in front of her house in the Selenghat area of Golaghat district. They said her condition “is deteriorating”.

“I am not well. My son told me he would come soon to take me for a check up…He has always fought for Assamese people…someone or the government has framed my son. They don’t want him to carry on the protest because the people of the state have united and they fear that they (the government) would soon fall,” a teary-eyed Priyada has told local reporters.

Akhil Gogoi, a staunch critic of the BJP-RSS, Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal and finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, had been spearheading protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in northern Assam, including the rural areas.

On December 12, he was detained by the Assam Police from Jorhat and handed over to the NIA. The Sonowal government has activated a case registered against Gogoi in 2009 by the Congress government. Gogoi has been in the crosshairs of the Congress government as well and was sent to jail a couple of times under various charges. The Sonowal government, in 2017 and in September 2019, charged Gogoi with sedition but both the times, the Gauhati high court set aside the allegations and released him.

Also read: Citizenship Amendment: As Protests Continue in Assam, Akhil Gogoi Booked Under UAPA

A state intelligence report, based on which the 2009 case was registered against Gogoi, alleged that he had links to Maoist organisations. In 2010, reacting to it, Gogoi reportedly said that he “is a Marxist but not a Maoist”.

On December 17, the NIA produced him before a special court in Guwahati and sought his custody for 20 days. He has been charged with sedition yet again in addition to being charged with intent to cause riot against national integration, punishment for criminal conspiracy and unlawful association under the recently amended Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Gogoi could be the first person in Assam to be arrested under the amended UAPA.

The court granted NIA his 10-day custody. In an interview to Scroll, while waiting for the judge at the special court, Gogoi said he was being both physically and mentally tortured. The sight of him being presented in the court with handcuffs and thick ropes with use of visible force on him was received with disapproval across the state.

Reacting to it, All Assam Students Union (AASU) advisor Samujjal Bhattacharjee told reporters, “We saw that he (Akhil) was tied up and taken to court. Nobody has the right to abuse someone like that. That is indeed condemnable…he must be released immediately.”

The AASU has demanded that the government drop its charges against Gogoi and release him immediately along with pro-talks ULFA leader Jiten Dutta, who was also at the forefront of the anti-CAA protests in upper Assam. The Asom Nagarik Samaj has also demanded Gogoi’s and Dutta’s release from custody.

Popular Assamese singer Nilotpal Bora has also called for his immediate release.

On December 18, the NIA flew Akhil Gogoi to its headquarters in Delhi.

Also read: In Assam, the BJP Govt is Looking to Quell Protests in Inventive Ways

Akhil’s lawyer’s Santanu Borthakur told The Wire, “As per court orders, he is to be produced for a medical examination every 24 hours. A lawyer has been allowed to meet him in Delhi and our information is that it has been complied with”.

Borthakur said, “Meanwhile, we have filed two petitions in the special court, one for handcuffing him in violation of the recent Supreme Court order and the other is about taking him to New Delhi without court’s permission.”

He said, “The court has issued notice today. At the end of his custody, which would be December 26, he would be produced in Guwahati and that day both the petitions would also be heard.”

Meanwhile, students, mainly from the Northeast, assembled for a demonstration in front of Assam Bhavan in Delhi on December 23 at the call of the JNU Students Union, demanding Gogoi’s immediate release. According to a protesting student, “More than 100 of us were detained by police. Though some of us have been released, till late in the evening, some others have not been”.