Itanagar, Sep 18: National award-winning filmmaker Dominic Sangma was allegedly assaulted by two men on the outskirts of the Arunachal Pradesh capital when he tried to intervene in a fight between a group of FTII students and the accused, police said on Friday.
The two accused, who allegedly attacked the film director with bamboo sticks, have been arrested, a senior officer said.
The incident occurred on Wednesday evening on the Jollang-Rakap road after Sangma, who hails from Meghalaya, attempted to protect the students of the Film and Television Institute of India at Jote from being beaten up by the two locals, he said.
An FTII security guard and four students were also assaulted, the officer said.
Sangma, a prominent figure in North Eastern cinema and best known for his critically acclaimed Garo-language feature film ‘Rapture’ (Rimdogittanga) and ‘Ma.Ama’, serves as the head of the department of screenwriting at the FTII campus in Jote.
According to the filmmaker’s wife, Sangma was out for a walk around 6.30 pm on Wednesday and spotted the two men, allegedly in an inebriated condition and armed with bamboo sticks, intimidating the FTII students.
“When he intervened, the two men attacked him with bamboo sticks,” Sangma’s wife said.
“Following a complaint, the police registered an FIR at the Balijan police station and arrested the two residents of Rakap village,” the officer said.
Meanwhile, the Arunachal Film Collective (AFC) condemned the assault, demanding a swift and impartial probe alongside immediate security measures for artists operating in the region.
AFC chairperson Bindiya Ete Nalo described the attack as a direct assault on creative freedom.
“We stand in complete solidarity with Dominic Sangma. He is not just a filmmaker from Meghalaya, but a pride of the entire North East, who has taken our indigenous stories to world platforms like Cannes and Locarno. An attack on him is an attack on artistic freedom and our collective cultural identity,” Nalo said in a statement.(PTI)
