NRC row: Five FIRs registered against Mamata Banerjee in Assam

A total of five FIRS have been lodged against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and eight TMC members, which went to Silchar, for allegedly creating disturbances on the basis of religion in Assam, a senior police official said on Saturday.

With two more FIRS registered against Mamata and her party members on Saturday, five total FIRs have been filed against them in Assam since the publication of the NRC final draft on July 30.

The two FIRs were registered at Guwahati and Silchar for allegedly creating disturbances on the basis of religion, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Ranjan Bhuyan said.Mamata and her party members are strongly opposed to the Assam Government's National Registration of Citizens (NRC) final draft. Effigies of Mamata were burnt and protests held against her across the state during the day.

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One FIR was lodged at the Geetanagar police station in Guwahati on the basis of a complaint by the Assam Public Works' Dhrubajyoti Talukdar on Friday night. The FIR was registered under the IPC sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language) and 298 (uttering words with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person).

The second FIR was registered at the Udharband police station at Cachar on Saturday by a policewoman, who was injured during an alleged scuffle with the visiting TMC members at the Silchar airport, the police official said. The FIR was registered for violating Section 144, which was in place then and attacking a public servant on duty, he said.

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Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal also faces two police complaints in West Bengal, which were filed on Friday. The complaints were filed by TMC MLA Mohua Moitra and MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, both members of the TMC team, for alleged manhandling and illegal detention at the airport after their return from Silchar.

The TMC team, comprising six MPs, one MLA and a West Bengal minister was kept under preventive detention by the Assam Police at the Silchar airport after they reached there on August 2 to take stock of the situation following the publication of the NRC final draft and were sent back on August 3.

(With inputs from agencies)