Facebook Campaign Leads To The Arrest Of Kalita, Main Accused in Guwahati Molestation Case

Amar Jyoti Kalita, the main accused in the Guwahati molestation case which shocked the nation earlier this month, has surrendered before the police in Varanasi. He is presently in the custody of Uttar Pradesh police, TV channels reported on Monday.

Kalita reportedly walked into the Banaras Hindu University police chowki in Varanasi on Monday afternoon and identified himself. Varanasi DIG Satish Ganesh confirmed that a man claiming to be Amar Jyoti Kalita had surrendered, according to reports carried by ANI.

Kalita fled Guwahati after the video of the July 9 incident went viral on the internet and was aired by news channels. In the days before his surrender, he was reportedly spotted in Odisha, Mumbai and Kolkata, and had been seen at Howrah railway station just three days earlier.

Police in Assam had so far arrested 11 to 12 of the accused. With Kalita's surrender, 14 of the 17 identified accused were in custody, with an Assam police team on its way to Varanasi to seek his transit remand.

The case turned on the video footage shot by Gaurav Jyoti Neog, a reporter with the local channel News Live — reportedly a friend of Kalita — which was broadcast by the channel and then circulated widely on Facebook and YouTube. Kalita was identified from the footage, in which he was seen wearing a red T-shirt. Neog himself was arrested earlier and booked on several counts including insulting the modesty of a woman.