Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Friday ordered the State police to arrest a Kolkata-based ideologue for hurting Assamese sentiments by calling the founder of the medieval Ahom dynasty a Chinese invader.
The Chief Minister instructed Guwahati’s Commissioner of Police Munna Prasad Gupta to leave for the West Bengal capital immediately to arrest and bring Garga Chatterjee, who calls himself a Bengali nationalist and federalist, for questioning.
Alluding to the Chinese attack on Indian soldiers in Ladakh, Mr. Chatterjee had on Wednesday tweeted: “There is a State in India where the ‘State Day’ is celebrated to commemorate a Chinese invader who brutally attacked India with Chinese troops.”
He added: “This invader is considered a hero by #China-funded anti-Indian separatist group ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom).”
December 2 is observed as Assam Day or Sukaphaa Divas. The day marks the arrival of Chaolung Sukaphaa from Mong Mao, now in China’s Yunnan province.
Sukaphaa is revered in Assam as the founder of the Ahom dynasty in the early 13th century and is credited with unifying various indigenous ethnic groups to form Bor Asom, which is much of present-day northeast.
One Bhaskarjyoti Gogoi had on Thursday filed a police complaint against Mr. Chatterjee in eastern Assam’s Dibrugarh for calling Sukaphaa a “Chinese invader” and accusing Mr. Sonowal of making the Bharatiya Janata Party use “Indian tax money” on statues of the medieval ruler.
