Gogoi encounter: Assam rights panel has no chief to run SC-ordered probe

Eleven days after Ghanakanta Gogoi, the prime accused in the Guwahati hotel shooting, was killed in police firing in Sivasagar district, the body the Supreme Court picked to examine Assam's police "encounters" is barely able to function. The Assam Human Rights Commission (AHRC) now has one member out of three, and the inquiry into 171 encounters that the court ordered in May 2025 has gone almost nowhere, The Indian Express reported on Sunday (November 15).

What happened to Ghanakanta Gogoi

Gogoi, 34, was arrested within an hour of the shooting at Hotel Bilas Inn in Guwahati on October 26. Five people died that night: Bhudev Bharali, Helena Bharali, Debarshi Kashyap, Rinika Kashyap and Narayan Das. Four of them belonged to the family that owned the hotel. Police linked the attack to a dispute over the hotel's lease. NEInsider covered the shooting and the SIT set up afterwards, the transfer of two SIT officers and the finding that his pistol had been deposited with police before the polls.

After seven days in police custody, a Guwahati court sent Gogoi to judicial custody on November 3. The court had earlier ordered safeguards after his lawyer raised fears for his safety, The Hindu and The New Indian Express reported. That night a Sivasagar police team took him out on a production warrant for a 2024 bank-loan fraud case. At about 3.10 am on November 4, near Gaurisagar, the vehicle stopped so he could relieve himself.

Sivasagar Senior Superintendent of Police Papori Chetia said Gogoi tried to snatch the service weapon of the investigating officer and three rounds went off in the struggle, hurting Sub-Inspector Debashish Sharma in the leg. Another policeman then fired, she said, and Gogoi was declared dead at Sivasagar civil hospital. The post-mortem was done at Assam Medical College and Hospital in Dibrugarh before experts from three institutions, PTI reported.

His wife, Junmoni Gogoi, who had herself surrendered to police in Dhemaji in October, rejects the police account. Pratidin Time quoted her asking why a man who had offered to surrender would run. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma called the death "unfortunate" and "unintended", said police had fired in self-defence, and ordered a magisterial inquiry, The Sentinel reported.

The 2025 Supreme Court order

Advocate Arif Md Yeasin Jwadder filed a public interest petition in the Gauhati High Court in 2021; it was dismissed as premature in January 2023. On May 28, 2025, a Supreme Court bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh overturned that ruling.

According to the judgment, the Assam government's own affidavits admitted to 171 police encounters between May 2021 and August 2022. In those incidents 56 people died, four of them in custody, and 145 were injured. Holding that the state police could not investigate their own officers, the court sent all 171 cases back to the AHRC, which had closed its own case in January 2022 because the matter was pending in the High Court.

The order told the commission to:

• publish a public notice in at least one national English daily and one widely circulated vernacular paper in Assam, inviting victims and families to come forward;
• keep complainants' identities confidential;
• if needed, use retired or serving police officers with no link to the officers involved to investigate further.

It also ordered free legal aid for families and full state support for the commission.

Why the inquiry has stalled

The chairperson the court had relied on, retired Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami, finished his term in August 2026, and the non-judicial member, Santanu Bharali, left in April, The Indian Express reported. An AHRC official told the paper that the full bench was not working, so it was "very difficult" to take decisions. A state official said the posts were being filled but could not say when.

Jwadder told the newspaper that even the public notices had not been published. Information he obtained from the commission showed only "preliminary steps" had been taken, he said. An official of the State Legal Services Authority said no family had sought its help.

The numbers since then

The 171 cases cover only the first 15 months of the Sarma government. The Hindu reported that Assam had recorded 210 police encounters since May 2021 "till January 24", with more than 80 deaths and over 180 people injured. Gogoi's death is the latest. After it, former Assam DGP and current CRPF Director General G P Singh posted on X that the "relevance of third law remains undiminished in Assam". The Indian Express reported that this was read as a reference to Newton's third law of motion, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

What to watch

• Whether the state names a new AHRC chairperson and member, and whether the commission then publishes the notices the Supreme Court ordered 18 months ago.
• The findings of the magisterial inquiry into Gogoi's death, and whether his family goes to court.
• The SIT's final report in the hotel shooting, including how Gogoi got the .32-bore pistol.