Two Muslim organisations have filed FIRs against a college teacher in northern Assam’s Darrang district for allegedly promoting “enmity between different religious groups” through her interpretation of a poem by celebrated Assamese writer Syed Abdul Malik.
The poem, Moi Asomiya (I am an Assamese), published in 1941, narrates how the Mughals had come to conquer Assam but stayed back and made Assamese their mother tongue.
Rupa Rani Bhuyan, who teaches English at a college in district headquarters Mangaldoi, had uploaded the first three stanzas of the poem on social media with a comment that it was glorification of the Mughals.
The All Assam Minorities Students’ Union and the Sadou Asom Goriya Moriya Deshi Jatiya Parishad filed FIRs against her in different places of the State. They said her comment had a religious slant besides defaming the writer who served as president of the Assam Sahitya Sabha, the highest literary body of the State.
The uproar made Ms. Bhuyan delete her post. “She was summoned to the police station concerned and interrogated. She has been cooperative,” Darrang’s Superintendent of Police Amrit Bhuyan said on Friday.
Former Director-General of Police and current Assam Sahitya Sabha president Kuladhar Saikia said the college teacher’s comment on one of the most popular Assamese poems was shameful.
