Assam Police Registers FIR against Three Authors of Class 12 book which says Modi was silent during Gujarat riots

Guwahati: Three authors from Assam are finding themselves running amid troubled waters, as Assam Police has registered an FIR against them in Assam’s Golaghat Sadar Police Station for criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi for being ‘silent’ during Gujarat Riots. The book is a class 12 reference book for political science under the NCERT.

Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat when the riots took place.

The reference book’s 376^th page which is written in Assamese, mentions that during the Gujarat Riot Narendra Modi was the then Chief Minister of the state and that he was silent over the state-wide violence that followed the deaths of 57 people in a compartment of Sabarmati Express at Godhra Railway Station.

Reportedly, the three authors who wrote the book are Durga Kanta Sharma (former head of the department of Arya Vidyapeeth College), Rafiq Jaman (former head of the department, Goalpara College) and Manash Protim Baruah (head of the department of South Kamrup College).

It may be mentioned that Sharma breathed his last a couple of years ago. The book has been in circulation since 2011.

Police informed that following a complaint by Soumitra Goswami and Manav Jyoti Bora, an FIR was registered and the duo has demanded an immediate withdrawal of the book from circulation.

According to the complaint by the two persons, the FIR Read, “The authors and publisher -- Assam Book Depot -- of the book are "trying to mislead" students by giving "false information" about the Gujarat riots, despite the fact that a special investigation team set up to probe the Godhra riots gave Modi a clean chit.”

Furthermore, the complainants further mentioned that the three authors have accused the then Modi government in Gujarat of being "mute spectators" and the state administration of "helping" Hindus against Muslims.

Contrarily, the accused authors have rubbished all allegations and said that there is nothing objectionable against the prime minister written in the reference book.

Clarifying his stand on the allegations, author Manash Protim Baruah told the media that the particular book was written based on an NCERT textbook and was first published seven years ago. Everything was already in the public domain and nothing has been added in the book by the authors. There are several other books in the market prescribed by the NCERT which have a same content regarding the Gujarat riots.

"We fail to understand why they have singled us out," he said.

Talking to Media Persons, Golaghat Superintendent of Police Manabendra Dev Ray said the complaint was registered under sections 153 (a), (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 505 (statements conducting to public mischief) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention.

Meanwhile, no statement has yet been made by Assam education minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya on the issue.