Journalist Abhisar Sharma Terms FIR by Guwahati Police ‘Baseless’, Vows Legal Fight

Guwahati: Senior journalist and YouTuber Abhisar Sharma has dismissed as “completely baseless” the FIR lodged against him by Guwahati Police, asserting that he would respond to the charges through legal means.

The FIR, registered by the city police’s crime branch, accuses Sharma of ridiculing the Assam and Union governments and of promoting religious enmity through one of his YouTube videos, according to a senior official.“The FIR filed against me by @assampolice is completely baseless. It will be responded to legally!” Sharma wrote on X, sharing the link to the video in question.

Explaining the content of his video, Sharma said he had cited a statement by an Assam judge regarding the state government’s decision to allot 3,000 bighas of land to Mahabal Cement and criticised the move. He added that he had also drawn attention to what he described as Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s ‘communal politics’, which, he stressed, was based on the CM’s own statements.

The FIR invokes Sections 152, 196, and 197 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023 provisions that criminalise acts endangering national unity, promoting enmity between groups, and making imputations prejudicial to integration. Notably, Section 152 replaces the colonial-era sedition law.

The development follows recent police action against other senior journalists. Guwahati Police earlier summoned Siddharth Varadarajan and Karan Thapar in separate cases under similar BNS provisions, with both directed to appear on August 22.

The complaint leading to the FIR was filed by Alok Baruah (23), a resident of Nayanpur, Ganeshguri, who alleged that Sharma’s remarks were made with mala fide intent to malign the elected governments at the Centre and in Assam. Baruah also accused the journalist of mocking the principle of Ram Rajya and claiming that the government “survives only on Hindu-Muslim polarisation.”