Assam begins drive to bulldoze over 600 homes in Goalpara district
The Assam government on Monday began its drive to demolish the homes of 667 families, the majority of them belonging to Bengali-origin Muslims, in an anti-encroachment drive in the Goalpara district.
Goalpara District Commissioner Khanindra Choudhury told Scroll that 45% of the homes on an allegedly encroached land in the Hasila Beel area were razed on Monday. The demolition drive will continue on Tuesday to clear the remaining structures, he added.
'There was no resistance from the encroachers and no untoward incident has been reported so far,' PTI quoted Choudhury as saying.
The official claimed that the district administration had served eviction notices to the villagers in 2023 and 2024, instructing them to vacate the 'wetland area'.
'We again served them notices on Friday and asked them to clear their houses by Monday morning,' PTI quoted Choudhury as saying.
Many residents left the village with their belongings, while the remaining families have requested that the district administration rehabilitate them.
Since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in Assam in 2016, more than 10,620 families – the majority of them Muslim – have been ousted from government land, according to data provided by the state revenue and disaster management department in August.
In September, the Goalpara district administration carried out a demolition drive in which 450 families, or about 2,000 persons, were evicted.
The families were illegally occupying 55 hectares of the Bandarmatha Reserve Forest, the newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying. The evictions in Goalpara were carried out in line with a High Court order.
This had come less than two weeks after two men were shot dead by the police amid violent protests during an eviction drive in Moregaon.
On September 9, the district authorities bulldozed nearly 240 homes, the majority of them belonging to Bengali-origin Muslims from Morigaon district. The residents had built their homes in the low-lying area over several decades.
Three days later, on September 12, the officials returned and gave them an ultimatum to vacate the land in two hours. This led to a violent clash between the residents and the officials, during which two men were shot dead by the police.
Thirty-three persons, including 22 government and police officers, were also injured in the clash.
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