A group of Guwahati-based citizens on Thursday requested Gauhati High Court to take suo motu cognisance and order the registration of a case against chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for his recent statements which “amount to hate speech, executive intimidation, and open vilification of the Miya community in the state”.

The request was made in a petition to the high court’s Chief Justice, Ashutosh Kumar, signed by 43 eminent citizens on Thursday afternoon, according to Paresh Makakar, activist and editor of a Guwahati-based news portal.

“The statements of the chief minister, delivered repeatedly (against the Miya community) in public forums, go far beyond political rhetoric and enter the prohibited constitutional zone of dehumanisation, collective stigmatisation and threats of state-sponsored harassment,” the petition said.

The signatories — which included intellectuals, academics, former bureaucrats, lawyers and activists — contended that the Miya community (Bengali-speaking Muslims with roots in present-day Bangladesh) “over the course of more than 100 years, has become a part of the larger Assamese society...”.

The intervention of the high court is “crucial not only for the protection of a vulnerable community but also for preserving the constitutional equilibrium between executive power and fundamental rights”.

“Silence or inaction in the face of such open constitutional transgressions risks normalising them and eroding the moral authority of the Constitution itself,” the petition said.

The petitioners said Sarma’s statements “constitute a direct call for physical harm, economic discrimination, and social humiliation of the Miya community, normalising cruelty and stripping them of their inherent right to live with dignity as guaranteed under the Constitution”.

To justify their claim, they cited Sarma’s appeal to make the Miyas suffer: “Whoever can, in whichever way, should make Miyas suffer. If you board a rickshaw, if the fare is ₹5, pay them ₹4.” They also flagged the chief minister’s “direction to interfere” with the ongoing special revision (SR) of the electoral roll. There are allegations against the ruling BJP of trying to tamper with the voter list in its favour.

Sarma, who has stepped up his rhetoric against the Miya community on the ground that their influx poses a threat to Assam’s identity and land, on Thursday said the Special Intensive Revision or SIR will be conducted in the state soon after the Assembly polls to be held in March-April.

The petitioners said Sarma’s statements directing BJP party workers to file objections during the SR process, “particularly targeting members of the Miya community”, besides asking officers “to work overtime”, make Miyas vulnerable.

“This is a grave constitutional impropriety. A constitutionally mandated and quasi-judicial process such as the SR cannot be converted into a partisan or communal exercise at the behest of the chief minister,” they pointed out.

The petitioners, invoking past Supreme Court rulings, then asserted that the “brazen hate speech of the Assam chief minister is prejudicial to national integration and directly promotes enmity between different groups on grounds of religion”.