Guwahati: A journalist of a Guwahati-based satellite channel has filed a complaint with the police, accusing a retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of threatening him and his family over a recent news broadcast.
The scribe, Rana Deka, in his complaint to the senior superintendent of police of Bajali on Friday, claimed that the retired IAS officer Hitesh Dev Sarma abused him over the phone over a news item regarding the situation outside Baksa jail.
According to Hindustan Times, an FIR was registered against Sarma under sections 351(2) (criminal intimidation and death threat), 352 (intentional insult with the intent to provoke breach of peace), and 296 (obscene acts in public places) of the BNS at Pathshala police station.
Sarma, who retired as the state coordinator of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam in 2022, is now under the police’s scrutiny.
On Saturday, the Bajali police summoned journalist Rana Deka to the station to record his statement. A senior police officer added that a notice would soon be issued to Sarma for the same purpose.
Last month, five accused in the singer Zubeen Garg’s death case were in Baksa jail, and violence had erupted when they were taken to the prison.
The bureaucrat’s son, an Assam Police Service (APS) officer currently posted in Baksa, was on duty outside the jail to control the situation. He was caught on camera baton-charging peaceful protestors.
Deka alleged that the ex-IAS officer instructed him to claim that the broadcast video was morphed and threatened him with dire consequences if he failed to do so.
He had even threatened harm to Deka’s eight-year-old son, the journalist alleged.
(With inputs from PTI)
