India News | Days After Death of Two in Police Firing, Eviction Drive Continues in Assam's Sonarpur
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The eviction drive in Assam's Kamrup Metropolitan district, which turned violent leading to the death of two and injury to 40 people nearly two weeks ago, resumed and it will continue for 2-3 more days to clear over 347 acres of "encroached land", officials said on Wednesday.
Guwahati, Sep 24 (PTI) The eviction drive in Assam's Kamrup Metropolitan district, which turned violent leading to the death of two and injury to 40 people nearly two weeks ago, resumed and it will continue for 2-3 more days to clear over 347 acres of "encroached land", officials said on Wednesday.
After a break of 11 days following the firing, the eviction drive restarted on Tuesday, and nearly 340 houses were demolished since then at the tribal belt of Kachutali in Sonapur revenue circle, adjacent to Guwahati city.
"Our eviction drive was peaceful today and has cleared 160 houses. Yesterday, we demolished more than 180 structures," Sonapur Circle Officer Nitul Khataniar told PTI.
He claimed that 95 per cent of the families had already left their houses after receiving the notices, and only their empty houses were demolished.
"In the first phase till September 12, we cleared 248 bighas of land. In this second phase beginning yesterday, we will clear around 800 bighas. We think this eviction operation will continue for another 2-3 days," Khataniar said.
He said, in the entire drive beginning earlier this month, a total of around 650 families have been affected for allegedly encroaching government land.
The affected families, who are primarily Bengali-speaking Muslims, claimed that they had moved to Sonapur a few decades ago from Morigaon, Darrang, Barpeta and other districts after erosion took away their land.
Khataniar said that the preparatory work for the eviction drive in the Kachutali area began on September 9 and the actual exercise started two days later.
During the eviction drive on September 12, the villagers allegedly attacked the officials and policemen with sharp weapons, sticks and stones.
When police opened fire to disperse the mob, two protesters were killed and over 35 people, including 22 government officials and police personnel, were injured.
The eviction drive was stopped then and the Kamrup Metropolitan district authorities set September 16 as a deadline for the alleged encroachers to vacate the Kachutali village.
Stating that the eviction drive in the area would continue, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had said: "We will clear the tribal belts and blocks of all encroachment by doubtful illegal settlers.
He had alleged that the Congress "instigated people to come out and attack the officials and police personnel on duty", leading to death and injury to people on both sides.
Assam DGP G P Singh had claimed that the attack on police personnel was suspected to be a case of "conspiracy by a certain section" as the eviction was continuing peacefully since September 9.
The Congress on the other hand had alleged that the state government has "violated court orders" by not issuing relevant notice for eviction from government land as "there is a ruling by both the Supreme Court and Gauhati High Court" in this regard.
On Tuesday, houses of around 450 families along with government installations were evicted in 55-60 hectares of Bandarmatha Reserve Forest in the Goalpara district of Assam to prevent man-elephant conflict.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)