Amnesty wants Assam government to guarantee fair trial to detained journalist

Expressing concern over Brahma’s detention under the NSA, Amnesty International India, in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday said the journalist now runs a risk of being detained for 12 months without charge or trial. “The use of administrative detentions under the National Security Act, 1980 or any other legislation must end and all legislation that facilitates the use of administrative detention should be repealed,” said Shailesh Rai, Programs Director at Amnesty International India.

The NSA detention order states that Jaikhlong Brahma “has been indulging in various types of violent activities with secessionist aims”. It also states that he maintained “personal link with the [outlawed] NDFB(S) [National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Songbijit faction)],” provoked and abetted the NDFB(S) to commit killings and arson, and accepted money from the group in exchange for producing and broadcasting video reports about it.

Jaikhlong Brahma is the Kokrajhar bureau head of NewsLive, a Guwahati-based private satellite TV news channel which is owned by the wife of a former influential minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. The TV news channel however has maintained that the allegations were baseless, false and fabricated, and intended at covering up police failure.