Noted litterateur and veteran journalist Homen Borgohain, who had returned his Sahitya Akademi Award in protest against growing intolerance in the country, passed away at a private hospital here on Wednesday morning a few days after testing negative for Covid-19.
Widely considered the voice of the downtrodden and a conscience-keeper of the society for his writings, Borgohain, suffered a fall on Tuesday night and was rushed to the hospital where he was declared dead at 6.58am. He had tested Covid-19 positive on April 24 and had returned home after testing negative on May 7.
The former president of Asam Sahitya Sabha had publicly announced his decision to return his Sahitya Akademi Award, which he had earned for his novel Pita Putra (Father Son) in 1978, in a newspaper column in October 2015 in protest against the “growing religious intolerance” and “fascist tendency’ in the country following the killing of a Muslim man in Dadri (Uttar Pradesh) for allegedly storing beef at home.