Himanta Biswa Sarma asks Assam citizens not to shelter evicted families; says govt wants to send them to their 'original place'

Guwahati: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma asked the people not to provide shelter to the evicted people, saying the government wants them to go back to their original place.

Assam has witnessed a series of eviction drives in the last four and half years. Sarma while talking to media persons on Monday said, “People have become aware, and we wish that people do not provide shelter to such evicted people for this will vitiate the atmosphere. These evicted people must go back to the place from where they came, we do not have a problem with that.”

He added, “If people co-operate the way they are doing will be able to do a lot of work and provide security to the race.”


Sarma hinted eviction drives will be carried out in Lakhimpur and Guwahati. “We have found that evicted people were holding 400 bighas of land and carrying out commercial activities. These people were earlier claiming that they were landless, and their lands were washed away due to river erosion. We have to reclaimed around 29 lakh bighas of encroached forest land which will take four to five years.”

Thousands of people took to the streets at Bilasipara in Dhubri district on Monday protesting against the eviction drives by the Assam Government.

Thousands of people, mostly victims of eviction drives, gathered at Bilasipara on Monday and they were supposed to be addressed by Raijor Dal Chief Akhil Gogoi. The irate mob also engaged in an altercation with the police who had gone there to disperse the crowd.

Recently the Assam government has asked the Deputy Commissioner to do a survey of encroachment in the forest land of the state.

Sarma had said, “All Deputy commissioners are instructed to find out the level of encroachment in the forest area. We will see that the forest is clear, and these people are evicted except those people who are forest dwellers. Tribal people can stay in the forest provided they have come prior to 2005.”

The Assam government has launched a series of eviction drives. The Assam government has reclaimed 182 square kilometres of land from encroachers. Over 50, 000 people are evicted.