AGP leader slams Gogoi government for freeing 'ISI agent'

Assam's regional party Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) Wednesday accused the Congress government of letting loose an ISI suspect after a Pakistani man was released from Guwahati jail.

Syed Fasiullah Hussayni, lodged in jail for the last 14 years after being arrested as a suspected agent of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), walked out Monday. He was taken to New Delhi from where he would be deported to Pakistan Dec 6.

"The Pakistani national was arrested during our (AGP) government in 1999 and the government had sufficient evidence against him to prove his links with the ISI. We submitted the evidence against him in the state assembly too," AGP president Prafulla Kumar Mahanta told the media.

"However, police did not submit the evidence against him in court during the tenure of the Congress government," he said.

"It is only during the tenure of the Congress that the people associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) and ISI could secure release," Mahanta said.

He added that "the Assam government has been a silent spectator although the union home ministry had warned that the recent political instability in neighbouring Bangladesh might affect the state.

"Intelligence agencies have also received reports that militants from the other side of the border have already entered the state in small groups," Mahanta said.

The AGP leader also asked Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to release the pending dues of government employees for the last 33 months.

State government employees have announced a strike starting this month after the chief minister said the government was not in a position to pay the arrears due to its poor financial condition.

"For the economic failure, Gogoi should come forward and shoulder the responsibility," he said.

Mahanta also asked the chief minister to make public the expenditure incurred on the various marriage ceremonies of his son organised in Guwahati, New Delhi and London.