Day after securing bail, Assam activist Pranab Doley detained under NSA

The Assam Government went ahead and accused Mr. Doley of being involved in “road blockades and damage of public properties with an intent to create lawlessness for personal and vested interests”. Photo credit: X/@PranabDoley19 Amid ongoing protests in Assam over a luxury hotel project near the Kaziranga National Park, the Government of Assam has now invoked the National Security Act (NSA) to detain environmental activist Pranab Doley, who has been supporting and leading these protests for weeks now.Mr. Doley was arrested by the police in Assam on July 12 over a sit-in protest that was held in the area and was granted bail by a local court earlier this week on July 29. The court, while granting him bail, had observed in the order, “In matters where ecological preservation intersects with indigenous survival, the standard apparatus of criminal law cannot be used to suppress local anxieties.”In an order issued the day after Mr. Doley was granted bail, the Political Department of the Assam Government said his activities were “prejudicial to the maintenance of public order as well as security of the State”, adding that the government was invoking powers under the National Security Act, 1980 to preventively detain him.‘Foreign funding’Further, in a notification accompanying the NSA detention order, which laid out the grounds for his detention, the Assam Government has cited as many as 13 police cases registered against Mr. Doley from as far back as 2017; it alleged that he had received funding from foreign sources and that he had made several trips to foreign countries like Spain, Italy, Thailand, UAE, Nepal, Norway, Phillippines, Switzerland, and Malaysia.The Assam Government went ahead and accused Mr. Doley of being involved in “road blockades and damage of public properties with an intent to create lawlessness for personal and vested interests”. Among the police cases cited by the State government, it specifically said Mr. Doley had been accused of “offences against women, public servants, hate incitement”, among others, including the latest FIR in July this month, over which he was arrested.In this latest FIR over the protests near the site of the proposed hotel project, the Assam police accused Mr. Doley and other activists and leaders of inciting protesters to act unlawfully, instigating the protesters to attack police personnel and allegedly outrage the modesty of women police personnel, among other charges.While granting bail, the court of the Additional Sessions Judge in Golaghat concluded that the police were unable to seize any “deadly weapons” from the protesters as alleged, adding that available video material from the protest also did not show any deadly weapons. The court further noted that there was no video material to show any male protester attacking or outraging the modesty of women police personnel.The court also examined arguments of the Assam police that Mr. Doley should be denied bail because of his foreign “connections”, visits, and funding. The Assam Government had added that Mr. Doley had also received funding from an organisation currently being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation for alleged violations of the FCRA.The court noted that none of Mr. Doley’s foreign visits or funding seems to be hidden, adding that the CBI probe was still ongoing and did not indicate any illegal role of Mr. Doley himself.Before parting with the order, Additional Sessions Judge N.M. Abdullah Ahmed noted that the nature of the issue in this case was a result of a “deep-rooted anxiety regarding environmental degradation and its impact on the socio-cultural fabric of the local Tea Tribes”. He went on to say that in such cases, “treating the activists or community leaders as ‘external disruptive element’ will not yield any fruitful result in the long run”. Published - July 31, 2026 08:20 pm IST