KMSS Chief Akhil Gogoi has tested COVID-19 positive?

Guwahati: It has been reported in some sections of the media that Akhil Gogoi, the long-ailing Assam peasant leader associated with the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act agitation, has finally tested positive for the dreaded COVID-19 on Thursday, July 9.

However, official sources informed The Sentinel Digital that the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) supremo was tested in jail using the rapid antigen testing method and his result came negative. Two of his close aides, Dhaijya Konwar and Bitu Sonowal, however, have tested COVID-19 positive.

"Gogoi, as well as his KMSS brethren, were tested late last night yesterday as some of them had reportedly exhibited COVID-19 symptoms. Gogoi's two close aides have tested positive. However, Gogoi himself, as well as another KMSS leader -- Manash Konwar -- have tested negative. The others were shifted out by an ambulance to Government-run facilities in the wee hours of the morning. Akhil is now doing well, and is showing signs of recovery", the official said.

According to reports, Akhil, incarcerated at the Guwahati Central Jail, has long been exhibiting the signs and symptoms associated with the viral disease -- which causes flu-like symptoms during the incubation period.

The news of Akhil's deteriorating health has spread across the length and breadth of Assam, and the Krishak Mukti leader's mother joined the long list of people pleading the Government to release him. A video of Akhil's mother Priyada Gogoi, in which she says that the Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal will be culpable if her son is to die in jail, was circulated in various sections of the media and went viral across Assam.

Later, Tarun Gogoi, a three-time former Chief Minister of Assam, also urged the Assam State Government to release Akhil from prison in view of his deteriorating health. The Congress leader also said that the Grand Old would pay the bills for the legal battle.

At the same time, Bitu Sonowal and Dhaijya Konwar. - serving a sentence at the Guwahati Central Jail - were taken out on Wednesday night and kept at a camp in Panbazar. This has been reported weeks after the detection of a first COVID-19 case in the Guwahati Central Jail and its subsequent sealing as a Containment Zone.

Meanwhile, Kamal Kumar Medhi, deputy of Akhil Gogoi and second in command in the KMSS, has slammed the Government for its "complacency" in giving treatment to the COVID-19 positive leaders of the organization and complained that they were being accorded "inhumane" treatment by the health personnel who picked them up.

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