Assam Police books journalist Abhisar Sharma days after summoning Siddharth Varadarajan and Karan Thapar

The FIR against Sharma has also been registered at the Guwahati Crime Branch police station and is based on a complaint filed by a Guwahati resident, Alok Baruah, against a video Sharma had uploaded on his YouTube channel on August 8. In the video, Sharma refers to recent remarks by Gauhati High Court judge Justice Sanjay Kumar Medhi, questioning why 3,000 bighas of land in the tribal Dima Hasao district were allotted to a private company to set up a cement factory, and accuses Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of “spreading poison” and raising communal issues as a “distraction”.

Along with section 152, the FIR has also been registered under sections pertaining to promoting enmity between different groups and to imputations and assertions prejudicial to national integrity.

In the complaint attached to the FIR, the complainant alleges that the video “contained statements ridiculing and denigrating the duly elected Governments of Assam and the Union of India, stating that the Government survives only on Hindu-Muslim polarisation, thereby provoking communal sentiments, accusing the Chief Minister of communal politics and promoting enmity between different groups on the ground of religion, prejudicial to maintenance of harmony, mocking ridiculing the principle of Ram Rajya, etc.”

“That the article published/circulated by the accused, Mr Abhisar Sharma, is not mere criticism but amounts to an attempt to excite disaffection, provoke public disorder, and endanger the unity and integrity of India by portraying the state as corrupt, communal and illegitimate, thereby commited the offence punishable under section 152 of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita,” the complaint said.

When contacted by The Indian Express, Sharma said he had just received the FIR and that he would respond after seeking legal opinion.