Four artists from Assam have been arrested for painting a mural of leader and activist Akhil Gogoi. These artists who have been arrested in Assam belong to a collective called Anga Arts. The Guwahati Police has detained the four artists because they painted a graffiti of Akhil Gogoi on the wall of a bridge in the city. The report first came out in the NorthEast Now. The artists were detained and also compelled to erase the painting.
The graffiti for which the four artists were arrested showed Akhil Gogoi being taken away by the police personnels. Presently leader and activist Akhil Gogoi is in jail for protesting against the CAA in December. Akhil Gogoi is the leader of the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti.
According to a report published in The Telegraph, the four artists who had drawn the graffiti were detained and taken to the Basistha Police Station. Along with the four artists, the leader of the student wing of Akhil Gogoi’s organisation was also arrested. The artists said that they were extremely confused as to why they had been detained and said that they had only painted what they had witnessed with their own eyes and that they had taken up several such projects in the past. They said that as artists it was their task to paint whatever they saw around them and that there hadn’t been such a problem in the past. They recalled how the police came to arrest them and said that they were not allowed to paint Akhil Gogoi as he was imprisoned and from the graffiti it appeared that it was painted in an attempt to demand the release of the activist. Akhil Gogoi has been lodged in the central jail of Guwahati and had even tested coronavirus positive in the month of July. The NIA had even charged Akhil Gogoi under the UAPA. Akhil Gogoi had been granted bail in March by the NIA court when the investigating agency could not file a charge-sheet against him within 90 days as specified. Akhil Gogoi was arrested again within two days.
