Goalpara protest rally
A view of the protest rally taken out by Goalpara BJP. Image - Northeast Now

The Goalpara district committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday took out a torch rally in Goalpara town demanding fast-track trial for Goalpara College student Vikramjeet Nath’s murder case where the East Goalpara MLA from the Congress party, AK Rasid Alom, was chargesheeted.

Hundreds of party activists joined the rally taking bamboo torches and candles and shouted slogans like ‘We want justice’, ‘Arrest murder accused MLA’, ‘Congress party hai hai’.

“We demand that the trial should be conducted in a fast-track court and the guilty be punished. So, we are taking out this torch rally throughout the Goalpara town,” stated Subrata Ghosh, secretary of the district BJP.

Also read: Assam: ‘Chargesheeted’ in murder case, still no action against Goalpara East MLA?

Vikramjeet Nath was a student of Goalpara College and son of late Keshav Ranjan Nath, a famous criminal lawyer in Lower Assam. He was shot dead in broad day light and from a close range inside the campus of Goalpara College on September 28 in 2001.

During investigation, several names, including members of a militant group, surfaced alleging their involvement in the murder. The chargesheet was produced on September 24, 2013 by Inspector Dimbeswar Roy, investigating officer. In the chargesheet, the sitting Congress MLA was named in serial no 3.

On September 28 last month, exactly after seventeen years of the incident, Vikramjeet’s mother Bina Devi with her two other sons addressed a press conference in their residence and demanded that the trial be conducted in a fast-track court to come a conclusion in the case.

The following day, in a counter-press conference organised at his residence in Kismatpur of the town, the MLA denied the charge and termed it as a ‘political conspiracy’. He defended himself by saying that among the thirty witnesses in the case, no one took his name in connection with the incident. He also wished a quick conclusion to the case.