Assam opposition parties question police encounter death of Guwahati hotel firing accused

    Guwahati, Nov 4 (PTI) Opposition parties in Assam on Wednesday questioned the killing of the prime accused in the Guwahati hotel firing incident in a police firing, maintaining that criminals should be brought to justice through legal process and not "encounters".

    They said the accused should have been tried in court and awarded exemplary punishment for his crime, while also expressing apprehension that he might be only a small part of a larger land mafia gang.

    Meanwhile, CRPF Director General G P Singh, who formerly served as the Assam DGP, made an apparent reference to the incident in a cryptic social media post, invoking Newton's third law of motion, which states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

    Ghanakanta Gogoi (34) was killed in police firing in Sivasagar district early Wednesday while allegedly attempting to escape from custody, a senior police officer said.

    Gogoi, the leaseholder of Guwahati's Hotel Bilas Inn, had opened fire on six people inside the hotel premises on October 26 following an alleged dispute with the property's owners. Five of those shot, including four members of the Bharali family that owned the hotel, were killed.

    Gogoi was arrested soon after the incident, and a licensed .32-bore pistol allegedly used in the crime was seized from his possession.

    A Guwahati court sent Gogoi to jail after the completion of his seven-day police remand on Tuesday. He was then arrested in connection with a 2024 bank fraud case on the same day.

    He was being taken to Sivasagar for further investigation when police opened fire after he allegedly attempted to escape from custody, officials said.

    “It cannot be said with certainty that Ghanakanta Gogoi was acting alone. The killer could be part of a larger land or property mafia syndicate. It is very likely that the shooter was not the mastermind," state Congress president Gaurav Gogoi told reporters after meeting the bereaved Bharali family at Barpeta.

    Citing his discussion with the family, he maintained that critical facts remained concealed and said the entire case must not be closed just because an encounter has taken place.

    The Lok Sabha MP alleged that land mafias target families who own plots in prime locations in Guwahati.

    "Who is the mafia? Who is the real ‘senapati’ (commander)? We want him caught,” Gogoi added.

    Another senior Congress leader Debabrata Saikia said extra-judicial killings were against the law and the judiciary should be allowed to decide the punishment for accused persons.

    He also claimed that there were rumours that Gogoi was a contract killer allegedly used as a front by an influential person to take over the business of the owners of Hotel Bilas Inn.

    "Gogoi wanted to speak to the media while in custody, but the police prevented him. With his death, many aspects won't come to light now," Saikia, a former leader of the opposition in the state assembly, said.

    Raijor Dal MLA Akhil Gogoi, who was travelling to his constituency Sivasagar, spoke to reporters at the encounter site.

    "Ghanakanta Gogoi was a professional killer; we can call him a terrorist. His dying by a bullet has nothing to feel bad about per se. However, I don't support encounters. He had no right to live, but we would have preferred if he had faced justice through due process," the MLA said.

    Akhil Gogoi also pointed out that the accused was killed while in custody in connection with a fraud case.

    "We were all hoping that he would get capital punishment for the hotel firing. But now, he has died in a fraud case," he said.

    Meanwhile, the CRPF DG's social media post drew attention to previous instances in which accused persons were killed or injured in police firing while allegedly attempting to escape from custody.

    "The relevance of Newton's third law remains undiminished in Assam. Keep it up @assampolice," Singh wrote.

    He also shared his post of December 1, 2021, which stated, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction - Newton's Third Law."

    Singh, who was then the special DGP (law and order) of Assam, had made the earlier post on the day the prime accused in the lynching of a student leader in Jorhat was killed while allegedly attempting to escape from police custody.

    According to data placed before the Assembly by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in March last year, who also holds the Home portfolio, at least 72 people were killed and more than 220 injured in police action in the state between May 10, 2021, and February 23, 2025.

    Sarma assumed office as chief minister on May 10, 2021.

    Of these incidents, no magisterial inquiry has been conducted in 81 incidents, while investigations were carried out in 175 cases across the state.

    A PIL alleging fake encounters by Assam Police was filed in the Supreme Court by advocate Arif Md Yeasin Jwadder in 2023, after the Gauhati High Court dismissed his petition on the issue that year.

    The petitioner had sought an independent investigation into 171 alleged fake encounters in Assam between May 2021 and August 2022, in which 56 people were killed, including four in custody, and 145 were injured.

    In its May 2025 order, the Supreme Court directed the Assam Human Rights Commission to conduct inquiries into all these incidents.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)