‘Miya' Muslims asked to vacate parts of eastern Assam
Muslims with roots in present-day Bangladesh, referred to as 'Miya' and perceived to be 'illegal immigrants', have been asked to vacate certain pockets of eastern Assam following Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's appeal to not provide shelter to people evicted from various categories of government land.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government has been conducting court-mandated eviction drives from forest lands, notified grazing grounds, and revenue lands in phases since 2016. The resumption of the drive in June is seen as a fallout of the Pahalgam attack in April.
More than 55,000 people, mostly Bengali Muslims, have been evicted since 2016. The number of those evicted this year is estimated to be 6,000.
At least seven organisations have been conducting house-to-house searches in the Sivasagar district to verify the documents of people working as labourers and staying on rent. A leader of one of these organisations, called Bir Lachit Sena, said they made at least a dozen people with 'suspect nationality' go back to where they came from.
The All Tai Ahom Students' Union undertook a similar exercise in the Tinsukia district further east. Reports quoting the union's president, Milan Buragohain, said members of his organisation intercepted 16 'Miyas' near a bus stand in Tinsukia town on August 5. These persons were on their way to Arunachal Pradesh to work as masons and construction labourers, but were made to return home to western Assam's Barpeta, Dhubri, and South Salmara-Mankachar districts.
The union also said it issued a month's notice to some 50 families of 'illegal immigrants' to leave an area near the district's coal-rich Margherita town.
The 'Miya Kheda Andolan' (movement to eject Bengali-speaking Muslims) has made the indigenous or Assamese Muslims uneasy. 'Certain groups are trying to whip up communal tension by accusing us of sheltering the Miyas. Our people have rented out their houses to Indian citizens, people living in Assam before March 24, 1971,' Monirul Islam Bora, a Sivasagar resident, told journalists.
'We are not against the drive to evict encroachers from government and satra (Vaishnav monastery) lands. We want to know if the district authorities have permitted these organisations to check the documents of people in the name of ejecting the Miya people,' he said.
Officials in the eastern Assam districts said they have been verifying complaints of harassment of certain categories of people.
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