Assam: Farmers ‘vandalise’ Covid-19 desk at Guwahati airport on return; 2 arrested

GUWAHATI: A group of about 12 farmer activists, who returned from Delhi on Wednesday after the protests, allegedly refused to go through the Covid tests at the airport here. At least two of them have been booked for vandalizing the Covid screening desk at the airport.
Police said Dinesh Das of independent peasant-workers’ organization Sangrami Krishak Sramik Sangha (SKSS), and Jayanta Gogoi of the CPI-affiliated Nikhil Bharat Krishak Sabha (NBKS), were arrested.An FIR was lodged against them at the Azara police station for allegedly resorting to vandalism and disrupting government officials on Covid duty at the desk that was jointly manned by officials from the administration and other departments.
Police sources said the farmers, after landing at the airport, refused to show their Covid test reports to the medical team. Family members of the activists, however, alleged that the government adopted a vindictive approach towards them for joining the farmer protests that turned violent on Republic Day.
“A team of protesters landed at the Guwahati airport at around 7.30 pm on Wednesday. But they refused to go through Covid screening. Besides, they could not show any documents to prove their Covid reports were negative,” said officer in charge of Azara police station, Pradip Kalita.
Police said the activists shouted at the medical team when they were intercepted and came out of the airport forcefully without going through Covid screening.
Among several sections of IPC that they have been booked under, section 188 deals with disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servants.
Police said they have also been booked for assaulting on-duty public servants and a malignant act that is likely to spread infectious disease. “They have been booked under Sections 188, 269 and 270 of the IPC. All these sections were used for those who broke the lockdown rules earlier and charged for spreading the pandemic. Their arrest is not linked to any acts of vandalism in the national capital,” said a police source.
Earlier on January 23, SKSS, NBKS, Jipal Krishak Sangha, CPM-affiliated All India Kisan Sabha, Sadou Asom Khetiyak Santha and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, among other organizations, were barred from taking the protest march to the Raj Bhavan here.
Family members of the activists, however, believe that they were under police radar for quite some time for expressing solidarity with the movement. “The police picked my husband from home at 9am today (Thursday). If he violated the Covid protocols at the airport last evening, why was he arrested more than 12 hours after he reached home?” questioned Pramoda Boro, wife of Dinesh Das, a resident of Rani area in Kamrup.
Mukut Deka, joint general secretary of KMSS, said the arrests have been made to threaten the peasant movement brewing in the state. “The two peasant activists were in the forefront of the movement against the farm bills. If they breached Covid protocols, how could they flee from the airport, which anyway is under tight security. The motive for the arrests is different.”