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Time of India
18 hours ago
- General
- Time of India
Eviction drive clears 140ha Paikan forest land; razes 2,500 structures
Guwahati: Days after evictions in Dhubri, the Goalpara district administration, with the help of forest and police officials, carried out a massive eviction drive on Saturday in settlements by minority community within Paikan Reserve Forest in lower Assam. The forest adjoining Meghalaya's hills, which got the recognition of a reserve forest in 1982, has gone through widespread encroachment over the past 25 years. Authorities cleared 140 hectares of forest land and evicted 1,080 families who had settled there. Most residents had vacated after receiving final notices to leave by July 10. The authorities have not provided alternative accommodations for these evicted families. "The eviction drive has been completed in the entire 140 hectares of forest land in Paikan Reserve Forest today," Goalpara DFO Tejas Mariswamy told TOI on Saturday. The region is known for frequent human-elephant conflicts. Forest officials said encroachment and unauthorised plantations within the reserve forest have contributed to these issues. "In the Goalpara landscape, during peak times, we can estimate the movement of 70 to 100 elephants. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like An engineer reveals: One simple trick to get internet without a subscription Techno Mag Learn More Undo They continue to move from one forest to another from Goalpara to Meghalaya," Mariswamy said. "Records indicate that encroachment mostly began about 25 years ago. The settlers were from lower Assam districts like South Salmara Mankachar and Barpeta, particularly from riverine char areas. They were originally from east Pakistan," he said. Paikan Reserve Forest covers about 710 hectares. Officials said while human habitation has been removed following Saturday's operation, some plantation encroachments remain. "Removing human settlements was a bigger challenge," Mariswamy added. Evicted families said their settlements were not officially recognised as revenue villages but alleged authorities had earlier permitted schools and water supply schemes. Eight mosques were built in the area; most were demolished during the eviction. In total, 945 pucca and 1,620 kutcha houses were razed. Meanwhile, the All Assam Minorities Students' Union (Aamsu) organised protests across the state, condemning the demolition of houses, mosques, and other structures. Aamsu-led protests flared in Bilasipara, Nagaon, and other parts of the state, with clashes reported in some places. Police prevented six AIUDF MLAs and an AAP delegation from accessing the eviction site. CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said about eight lakh bighas of govt land are under encroachment. "We do not carry out eviction drives for joy. There are Supreme Court and high court directives that forest, VGR, PGR lands should not be encroached," Sarma said. He questioned why the landless don't seek land in home districts and suggested probing if such settlements aimed to alter local demographics. "There should be a study to ascertain whether these people go to other districts due to poor economic conditions or were settled by someone else to turn Assamese people into a minority," Sarma said.
Scroll.in
a day ago
- Politics
- Scroll.in
Assam: Homes of 1,080 families bulldozed in Goalpara eviction drive
Authorities in Assam's Goalpara district on Saturday cleared 140 hectares of land in the Paikan Reserve Forest, displacing 1,080 families, most of whom are Muslims of Bengali origin, officials told Scroll. This was the second major eviction drive in the district. On June 16, the authorities demolished homes of 690 families in Hasilabeel, a wetland, near Goalpara town. At least five eviction drives have been carried out in four districts of Assam in the past month, which displaced nearly 3,500 families. Goalpara Divisional Forest Officer Tejas Mariswamy told Scroll that 2,700 structures were demolished on Saturday. 'The land is part of the Paikan Reserve Forest of the Krishnai Range,' Mariswamy said. Mizanur Rahman, a 28-year-old resident of Bidyapara revenue village, lost his homes during the eviction drive. He and eight members of his family have nowhere to go, Rahman said. 'All of the three houses including the pacca house were razed today…we don't have land anywhere else,' he said. 'People have been living here before it was declared a reserved forest,' said Rahman. 'It is a revenue village.' The Assam government had proposed to constitute Paikan as a reserve forest in 1959. It was declared a reserve forest in 1982. In 2022, the Goalpara Lawyers Association sent a memorandum to the state government and forest department saying that the forest rights and claims of several persons over the land in the area had not been settled. The association had asked 'for compliance of the mandatory provisions' under 1891 Assam Forest Regulation as decided in October 1959, before the evictions take place in the protected forest areas. Jiten Das, the president of the district lawyers' association, and Wazed Ali, the secretary of the body, said that in the past 40 years, 472 villages of Goalpara district had been washed away because of erosion caused by the Brahmaputra river. As a result, they said, thousands of people had become homeless and landless. 'Many of these people, having found no alternative for their survival, took shelter in the PRF land, erecting a shed over their head,' they added. A large number of security personnel had been deployed for patrolling in the areas in the past few days. District officials had said that the majority of the people living in the area had already dismantled their homes and shifted out before the eviction drive took place. Deputy Commissioner Khanindra Choudhury told Scroll that the evictions were carried out peacefully as more than 1,000 police personnel had been deployed. About 40 bulldozers were used, he said. Last week in Dhubri district, where an eviction drive led to the demolition of the homes of 1,400 Bengali-origin Muslim families, the authorities had allocated land for the rehabilitation of the affected persons. The administration had also earmarked Rs 50,000 for one-time relief for residents to transport their belongings. Ninety-three families of Bengali-origin Muslims were evicted on June 30 in Assam's Nalbari district during an anti-encroachment drive on nearly 150 acres of village grazing reserve land in the Barkhetri revenue circle. On July 3, about 220 families were evicted during an anti-encroachment drive in upper Assam's Lakhimpur district. The district authorities said that the families were living on 77 acres of land at four locations, including three village grazing reserves. Between 2016 and August 2024, more than 10,620 families – the majority of them Muslim – have been evicted from government land, according to data provided by the state revenue and disaster management department.
