Assam police have arrested two youths for making derogatory remarks about 19th century author Lakshminath Bezbarua, after the video of the incident was uploaded on social media and caused massive outrage.
The accused have been identified as Rubul Hossain and Arifuddin. Rubul had made some offensive remarks in front of the statue of Lakshminath Bezbarua at Srimanta Sankaradeva Kalakshetra Guwahati. A case was registered against the duo at the Doboka police station.
The matter came to light after a video of the incident went viral on social media. The two youth had visited the Srimanta Sankaradeva Kalakshetra, during which one of them used expletive-laden language for the revered Assamese literary stalwart. Lakshminath Bezbarua was pioneer of modern Assamese literature, who had authored poems, novels, plays, short stories, children’s stories, satires, and non-fictions books mainly discussions on Hindu religious texts.
In the video, Rubul Hussain was seen making some controversial comments in front of the idol of Assam’s literary icon. Reportedly, it was being recoded by his friend Arif Uddin, and was later uploaded to social media by him.
After the video went viral, the Hojai district unit of AMSU (All Assam Minority Students’ Union) strongly condemned it and lodged a complaint with the police. Based on the complaint, Doboka police arrested Rubul Hossain, while Arif Uddin was named by the public and AMSU workers, and was handed over to the police.
According to Arif Uddin, both of them had gone to Guwahati for some, and then visited the Srimanta Sankaradeva Kalakshetra. There, Rubul stopped near the idol of Bezbarua, and as Arif was making video of the Kalakshetra, the comments also got recorded. Arif claimed that later the video was uploaded to his social media account ‘by mistake’.
He said that there was no bad motive behind the video, and all of it happened by mistake. In a video statement, Arif pleaded for forgiveness and claimed that he recorded the video without realising that it will hurt the sentiments of people. He also promised to not repeat the offence in future.
As the incident happened at Srimanta Sankaradeva Kalakshetra, there was some confusion and most people thought Rubul was insulting Sankardeva, the 15th century Assamese polymath, who had introduce neo-Vaishnavism and the Bhakti movement in the state. Even several media reports also mention this, but the video clearly shows that it was the statue of Lakshminath Bezbarua.
