A right to information (RTI) activist from Assam was arrested in Delhi on Wednesday in connection with the suicide of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from the northeastern state, officials said.
The RTI activist, Dulal Bora, is accused of abetment to suicide of a panchayat representative in Rajapukhuri in Charaideo district. He allegedly filed RTI applications regarding misuse of public money in construction of a temple in the area. But despite replies to his queries, he allegedly harassed the panchayat representative, who was responsible for the project. The BJP leader died by suicide on Friday leaving a note, accusing Bora and three others of being responsible for his act.
“We had information that Bora was in Delhi, and we requested the police there to trace and arrest him. He was arrested on Wednesday morning. A team from Assam Police is already there. Bora will be produced in court in Delhi and brought to Assam either on Wednesday evening or Thursday on a transit remand,” said Charaideo police superintendent Hiranya Kumar Barman.
Barman said that two other accused in the case, who have been named in the suicide note, a former block development officer, Ranjit Buragohain, and a journalist, Parismita Phukan Baishya, have already been arrested. The fourth accused, a journalist, Rafiq Ahmed, is yet to be arrested.
The Delhi Police confirmed that they apprehended Bora from the residence of his daughter at Kriti Nagar in West Delhi, after their counterparts in Assam informed them about his presence in the city and sought assistance to catch him in the abetment to suicide case.
A senior Delhi Police officer, who did not want to be named, said that the Assam Police alerted the west district police about Bora’s presence in a private hospital for treatment. “We were told that Bora was a fugitive, and he had fled his hometown in Assam to avoid his arrest in the case,” he said.
The Assam police, the officer said, learned that Bora’s daughter is a cardiologist in a private hospital, and he was admitted there for treatment of his ailments.
“We sent a police team to the hospital in the morning (Wednesday), where the team members learned that Bora was discharged some moments ago. The team then went to the residence of the cardiologist, where Bora was found. He was apprehended and brought to the Kirti Nagar police station. An Assam Police team has already reached Delhi to secure Bora’s custody and take him back to Assam on a transit remand, for which they will produce him in a Delhi court and seek permission,” the officer said, and added that Bora was not arrested by. the Delhi Police, since he was not wanted in any case in the city.
Bora has been in the headlines in Assam for allegedly misusing the RTI Act to blackmail people and extort huge sums. Following a CID report this month that he has 31 criminal cases of cheating and extortion against him, the state information commission decided recently to keep all his second appeals and applications in obedience.
Bora is accused of filing hundreds of RTI applications seeking information on projects and he used the replies to blackmail government officials and contractors to extort large sums. According to the state information commission, he had filed 2,173 second RTI appeals, which are filed when an applicant is not satisfied with the responses received. The RTI activist runs a news portal and had even contested the 2021 assembly polls.
“The state cabinet will take a decision urging all government departments and the state information commission not to reply to any RTI applications filed by Bora in future. He should be treated as a criminal and not as an RTI activist,” Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Wednesday.
