In order to remove encroachments from 795 hectares of government and forest property, where some 1,700 households resided, an eviction drive was started on Saturday in Assam’s Nagaon district, according to officials. They added that the drive, which began in the Lutimari area in the morning amid a massive security force deployment, ended around 4 p.m. and will resume on Sunday.
Three months ago, the encroachers received notices requesting that they leave the property within two months. According to an official, the district administration granted them plea for an extra month to leave. According to him, the unlawfully constructed buildings were demolished and more than 1,100 families who were residing in both pucca and kuccha houses had already departed with their possessions.
He stated that 2,070 kuccha dwellings and 192 brick homes and buildings, including two lower primary schools, a primary health center, seven Anganwadi centers, and Jal Jeevan Mission water treatment units, were destroyed. The villages of Bedetipar, Sankhula, Jurirpar, and Kendapara in the Greater Lutumari Forest Reserve are the sites of the eviction campaign. After District Commissioner Devashis Sarma’s appeal, almost 70% of the people living in these villages have already moved out.
According to the official, over fifty bulldozers have been hired for the demolition effort. Some locals said they had lived there for more than 40 years without realizing it was forest land. Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister, had previously stated that since taking office in May 2021, encroachments have been removed from more over 160 square kilometers of land.
He claimed that these anti-encroachment campaigns had resulted in the eviction of more than 50,000 persons. Over 5,000 families were impacted when the state’s eviction drives resumed on June 16 of this year. The majority of the displaced are members of the Bengali-speaking Muslim community, who say that after their land in the “char” or riverine areas was eroded away by the Brahmaputra River, their forefathers settled in the areas where the eviction efforts are being conducted.
