The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested the eldest son of former Assam Chief Minister Hiteswar Saikia in a bank loan default case.

The CBI team arrested Ashok Saikia, also the brother of Congress Legislature Party leader Debabrata Saikia, from his Guwahati residence in a case related to a ₹9.37 lakh loan taken from the Assam State Cooperative and Agriculture Development (ASCARD) Bank in 1998.

The case had initially been registered at Guwahati’s Paltan Bazar police station and transferred to the CBI in 2001 after two complaints were filed with the probe agency’s Kolkata branch. Mr. Ashok Saikia was convicted in one of the cases in 2013.

In a statement, Mr. Ashok Saikia said he was being victimised for a loan he had repaid long ago. “I have availed the loan from the ASCARD Bank in 1996 for a business. I have cleared the dues and H.N. Borah, the then general manager of the bank had in a letter on October 10, 2015, said the loan has been liquidated.”