‘Baseless’: Journalist Abhisar Sharma on FIR for remarks against Assam CM

Guwahati: Journalist and YouTuber Abhisar Sharma on Thursday rejected as “completely baseless” the FIR lodged against him for accusing Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of pursuing communal politics.

In a social media post, Sharma said, “It will be responded to legally. I had…highlighted Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s communal politics with facts – based on his own statements.”

The FIR, registered earlier in the day on the basis of a complaint by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad member Alok Baruah, invokes sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita related to acts endangering national unity and sovereignty, promoting enmity between groups and making assertions prejudicial to national integration. The ABVP is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Baruah alleged that Sharma ridiculed the Union and Assam governments, thereby endangering national sovereignty, and accused the chief minister of communal politics. A senior Guwahati Police officer told Scroll that the FIR was filed as Sharma “was speaking against the country and its sovereignty”.

Press bodies and opposition leaders have sharply criticized the case. Digipub News India Foundation, an association of independent digital outlets, said the police were being “increasingly weaponized to silence dissent”. Calling the move an attack on press freedom, it demanded that the FIR be quashed and that repressive laws such as sedition not be misused.

Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate termed Sarma a “coward”, alleging that the FIRs against senior journalists Siddharth Varadarajan, Karan Thapar and Abhisar Sharma were “futile attempt to intimidate and silence them”. Rashtriya Janata Dal spokesperson Priyanka Bharti expressed solidarity with Sharma and asked why the government was “so rattled by the truth”.

The case against Sharma comes days after Guwahati Police’s Crime Branch issued a summons to The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan in connection with an article on Operation Sindoor. The summons coincided with Supreme Court protection granted to Varadarajan and members of the foundation running The Wire in a separate FIR. The outlet also confirmed that journalist Karan Thapar received a police summons earlier this week.