Assam opposition questions police encounter killing of Guwahati hotel firing accused

Opposition parties in Assam on Wednesday questioned the killing of the prime accused in the Guwahati hotel firing incident in police firing, saying he should have faced trial and punishment through the judicial process rather than being killed in an alleged encounter.

Ghanakanta Gogoi, 34, the leaseholder of Guwahati's Hotel Bilas Inn, was killed in police firing in Sivasagar district early Wednesday while allegedly attempting to escape from custody, a senior police officer said.

Gogoi had opened fire on six people inside the hotel premises on 26 October following a purported dispute with the property's owners. Five people, including four members of the family that owned the hotel, were killed.

He was arrested soon after the incident, and police seized a licensed .32-bore pistol allegedly used in the shooting. After completing his seven-day police remand on Tuesday, a Guwahati court sent him to jail. Sivasagar police subsequently arrested him in connection with a 2024 bank fraud case.

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

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

Describing the accused as a professional killer, Akhil Gogoi said his death was not something to regret in itself. However, he opposed the use of encounters, arguing that the accused should have faced the judicial process.

"He had no right to live, but we would have preferred if he had faced justice through due process," he said.

Akhil Gogoi said people had hoped that the accused would receive capital punishment for the hotel firing, but he had instead died while in police custody in connection with a fraud case.

Senior Congress leader and former Leader of Opposition in the Assam Assembly Debabrata Saikia said encounters and extra-judicial killings were against the law and that the judiciary should determine the punishment for accused persons.

Saikia also referred to rumours that Gogoi was a contract killer allegedly used as a front by an influential person to take over the hotel business from its owners.

He claimed that Gogoi had wanted to speak to the media while in custody but was prevented from doing so by the police. His death, Saikia said, meant that several aspects of the case might never come to light.

Meanwhile, CRPF Director General G P Singh, who formerly served as Assam's director general of police, drew attention to the incident through a cryptic social media post invoking Newton's third law of motion.

"The relevance of Newton's third law remains undiminished in Assam. Keep it up @assampolice," Singh wrote, referring to the principle that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

He also shared a post he had made on 1 December 2021, stating: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction - Newton's Third Law."

Singh had made the earlier post when he was Assam's special DGP (law and order), 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.

The latest incident has brought renewed attention to police firing and alleged extra-judicial killings in Assam.

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

The data showed that magisterial inquiries had not been conducted in 81 incidents, while investigations had been carried out in 175 cases. The government said police cases were registered in each incident under relevant laws and in accordance with National Human Rights Commission guidelines.

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

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

In May 2025, the Supreme Court directed the Assam Human Rights Commission to conduct inquiries into all 171 incidents.