Unidentified miscreants attacked two leaders of the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) movement about 220 km apart on Thursday night.
Police said they were probing the attacks and that there was no evidence yet to establish these were related to the anti-CAA stir.
In the first of these incidents, a gunman fired at the car of Binoy Barua at Ganakpukhuri near Dergaon in eastern Assam’s Golaghat district. Mr. Barua had gone to the house of Pranjal Rajkonwar, an acquaintance, and the car was parked outside his house when the shots were fired.
“The gunman fled after the shots alerted the neighbours. I have no idea who he was but the attack could be related to the anti-CAA protest I have been organising in the area,” Mr. Barua said.
Golaghat’s Superintendent of Police Pushpraj Singh said seven empty cartridges were recovered from the site of the incident.
“The man who was attacked is politically active. We are investigating, so it is difficult to say at this point of time whether the incident is due to political or personal enmity or if there is some other reason,” he told The Hindu .
The local police said the incident happened around 9 p.m., almost 12 hours after Mr. Barua had organised an anti-CAA rally in Ganakpukhuri.
Almost simultaneously, some miscreants pelted stones at the car of Entajul Islam, a former leader of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), when he was travelling from Udalguri town to Paneri in north-central Assam.
The AASU has been spearheading the anti-CAA movement in Assam, which began violently and claimed the lives of six people in December 2019.
The district police said the attack could have been carried out by two unidentified men who rode a two-wheeler.
“We suspect a force aided by former extremists desperate to start a communal conflict was behind the attack,” local AASU leader Jayanta Bhattacharya said.
