Professor Arupjyoti Saikia, who teaches at IIT Guwahati, was questioned on Saturday, for about four hours at the NIA's office at Sonapur on the outskirts of Guwahati, reported The Hindu.
It is still not clear why Saikia, a professor of history in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, was summoned. Reports suggest that it is in connection with the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
An IIT spokesperson confirmed his summoning as a witness in a case, The report said.
Media reports speculate that in December, the Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had said that the government had evidence that an academician played an important role in the anti-CAA protests that led to the death of six people.
Four people died after being shot by police, while another was killed when a shop he was sleeping in was set on fire. Another man was beaten to death during a protest.
Professor Saikia’s research area is economic, environmental and political history of modern Assam. He penned ‘The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra’ and ‘Geographical Exploration and Historical Investigation: John Peter Wade in Assam’ in 2019.
(With inputs from The Hindu)
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