"Eviction drives to continue": Himanta says 25,000 acres of land cleared of encroachment in 4 yrs

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has announced the continuation of eviction drives in the state. He informed that encroachment in the last four years has resulted in the clearing of more than 25,000 acres of land.

Addressing a press conference after a cabinet meeting in Guwahati, Sarma announced that an eviction drive will take place in Goalpara on Saturday to clear forest land from alleged encroachment.

"As of now, the Assam government has cleared thousands of bighas of land in the last four years. In my view, it is not less than 25,000 acres of land. This is huge," he added.

Sarma said that he will hold another press meet next week and furnish all data related to eviction drives since he became the CM in May 2021.

“We will have another eviction drive on Saturday in Goalpara. The Gauhati High Court has asked us to clear forest land. It only said that we should provide drinking water and other essential items to the evicted people,” he added.

In Goalpara, the district administration had planned to carry out the eviction drive to clear around 1,040 bighas of land in Paikan Reserve Forest of Krishnai Forest Range, displacing 1,080 families.

Sarma said, “The government is willing to provide land rights to the evicted people provided they are bona fide Indian citizens and they are landless. Regarding the condition of landlessness, they have to be landless in their native places, not at the evicted place.” He claimed that a very minuscule percentage usually come forward to claim land rights after an eviction drive.

Talking about the Lakhimpur eviction drive conducted earlier this month, the CM claimed that people from Sribhumi, South Salmara-Mankachar and other minority-dominated areas were living in the northern Assam district.

“There was a big conspiracy to change the demography of Lakhimpur. If there is no BJP, there would not be restoration of the demography. We have restored the demography at several places where eviction had taken place,” he claimed.

Sarma also claimed that Hindus have become minority in many places such as Dhubri town, and alleged that 10,000-12,000 people from Baghbor in Barpeta migrated to the western Assam town and changed the demographic pattern.

“In Goalpara, there is a 200-300-years-old temple. But Hindus in the area are a minority,” he added.

About 3,500 bighas of land, affecting around 1,100 families, in Charuwa Bakra, Chirakuta and Santoshpur villages under Chapar circle were cleared during the drive on Tuesday for handing it over to the Adani Group for setting up a power plant.

Alleged encroachers damaged excavators and tried to attack police personnel during the eviction drive, prompting security forces to resort to baton-charge to disperse the mob.

Last month, Sarma had visited the site for the proposed power plant, and announced that a 3,400 MW thermal power plant will be established there and a tender for the project will be floated soon.