Guwahati (Assam) [India], March 27 : After the arrest of Assam journalist Dilwar Hussain Mozumder and the protest by press bodies, Assam Minister Pijush Hazarika on Thursday questioned the professional background of Mozumder in a tweet directed at the President and Secretary of the Guwahati Press Club.
In a post on X, Hazarika said, "Dear President/Secretary of Guwahati Press Club, will you kindly reveal if Dilwar Hussain is a practising advocate or a journalist or/ also a businessman?"
Journalists of the Guwahati Press Club staged a protest in Guwahati on Wednesday against the arrest of a journalist from an Assam-based digital news portal.
The journalists of the Guwahati Press Club demanded the immediate release of the arrested journalist.
Dilwar Hussain Mozumder, the chief reporter of the digital news portal The Cross Current and assistant general secretary of the Guwahati Press Club, was arrested by Panbazar Police on Tuesday night.
According to the reports, earlier on Tuesday, Dilwar Hussain Mozumder was summoned by the Panbazar Police Station after he covered an agitation programme against the alleged financial irregularities of Assam Co-operative Apex Bank and questioned the MD of the bank over the alleged financial irregularities of the bank, and later, the police arrested him.
A case was registered at Panbazar Police Station in Guwahati against the journalist under Section of BNS and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (Amendment 2015).
According to the police, Dilwar Hussain Mozumder misbehaved as a tribal security guard of the bank.
The MD of the bank said that, he tried to steal documents of the bank.
On Wednesday, a local court granted bail in one case.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said that Dilwar Hussain Mozumder has worked in a portal, and the state government is yet to give recognition as a journalist to those who have worked in the portal.
Dilwar Hussain Mozumder is also an advocate. Opposition political parties, including Congress, Assam Jatiya Parishad, and Raijor Dal, have demanded his immediate release.