Guwahati, Mar 13 (PTI) Sixty-six accused were killed and 158 others injured in police custody after Himanta Biswa Sarma became the chief minister of Assam in May 2021, the assembly was told on Monday.
In a written reply to a query by AIUDF MLA Ashraful Hussain, Sarma said 35 accused were killed and 12 others were injured in gunfights with the police between May 10, 2021 and February 28, 2023.
Further, 26 people were killed and 146 others injured in police firing, he added.
"In addition to these, five accused were killed in an accident when they tried to flee from police custody," said Sarma, who also holds the Home portfolio.
During the debate on the Motion of Thanks on the governor's address, AIUDF MLA Aminul Islam asked why the police force has become "so inefficient" that every time an accused flees, they are shot dead.
"The government is carrying out fake encounters. The cases of Kenaram Basumatary and Kirti Kamal Bora prove that fake encounters are going on in Assam. The governor should know this," he added.
A CID probe into the death of a person, suspected to be a dacoit, in a police encounter on February 24 in Assam's Udalguri district affirmed that it was a case of "mistaken identity".
The probe concluded that the deceased was not dacoit Kenaram Boro alias Kenaram Basumatary but a person identified as Dimbeswar Muchahary, who his family asserted was a "small-time farmer" but police claimed he was a "hardened criminal".
Student leader Kirti Kamal Bora, who was alleged to have been involved in drug peddling, was injured in police firing on January 22 last year, the incident opposition parties and social groups called an effect of the prevailing "police raj".
A one-man commission of Paban Kumar Borthakur, the then additional chief secretary, found that police officials involved in the firing were at fault, and Bora was not carrying any drugs at the time of the incident.