GUWAHATI: Assam Police arrested Friday one of the three suspects in the alleged gang rape of a 14-year-old girl in Nagaon‘s Dhing that led protesters to hit the streets with slogans declaring they would willingly give up benefits of welfare schemes in return for capital punishment to the culprits.
The arrested man, identified as Tafazul Islam, was traced to his home, about 2km from the location where the teenage survivor was assaulted the previous evening while cycling her way back home from tuition.
CM Himanta Biswa Sarma termed the crime “an attack on indigenous Assamese people”, alluding to the gang-rape being reported in an area with a sizeable Bangladesh-origin immigrant population.
He mentioned that it was the “23rd such crime in two months” in pockets of the state predominantly inhabited by immigrants. “In lower, central Assam and Barak Valley districts, where indigenous people have become a numeric minority, they are living in constant fear. People outside these regions cannot gauge this harsh reality,” the CM said.
Sarma said the police’s response to the crime in Nagaon illustrates the difference between governance in Assam and neighbouring Bengal. “In Bengal, when women are tortured, the criminals are protected and the police take suspicious action. A daughter was tortured in Assam… and immediately ministers and police officers, including the DGP, reached there to investigate the incident,” he said in a post on X.
Outrage over the gang rape spread to upper Assam’s Sivasagar, where organisations representing the local Muslim population organised a protest march demanding the arrest of the suspects and the strictest punishment to them.
DGP GP Singh said similar crimes had occurred recently in several areas of central Assam. “I have asked for geo-tagging of areas where inter-community interface exists. If geo-tagging can be done in the next few days, then we can prepare an area-specific security plan.”
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