• Rights body Janhastakshep calls upon all democratic forces to end to the brutal eviction drive

While Assam is being once again pushed into communal cauldron by this unabated eviction spree launched in the name of removing encroachment, it is said that Maulana Badruddin Ajmal did not raise the issue of eviction in the just concluded winter session of parliament. Ajmal represents Dhubri parliamentary constituency in Assam.

However, Janhastakshep, a campaign against fascist designs’ took the cognizance of what is happening in Assam which unequivocally condemns this dastardly and inhuman attack on Muslims by the BJP government in the State which is being perpetrated purely with a political purpose of dividing the Assamese people along communal lines and preparing a fertile ground towards the next Lok Sabha elections.

It is worth mentioned that a Janhastakshep team visited the Dhalpur 1, 2, and 3 villages in the state’s Darrang district after the state government led by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma demolished these villages, and the convener of Janhastakshep learned firsthand about the ongoing evictions during his visit to the state between December 25 and 27, 2022.

Dr Vikas Bajpai, Convener and Anil Dubey, Co-convener underlined in the statement that over the past few years, Muslim minority, and especially the Bangla speaking Muslims, in the state have been afflicted by a sense of insecurity, but as was reported by several people, as in the case of Darrang eviction drive, what has been surprising this time around as well is the sudden brazenness with which the administration has evicted the people and destroyed their homes.
“In the run up to the eviction, no government officer or government agency made any attempt to speak with the people to explain the reasons for which their land was required, even less to discuss any form of rehabilitation or compensation”.

“Having become the Chief Minister of the state, between May 2021 and September 2022 the BJP government demolished homes of a total of 4449 Bengali Muslim families in the state. That the eviction drives have taken place under the shadow of police impunity to terrorize the people into meek submission has exposed the brutally inhuman face of the state BJP government. One need only recall the image of a police photographer jumping over the body of a man shot dead by the police in Dholpur area of Darrang district while demolishing the entire village in September 2021.Likewise 550 families were evicted from Lumding reserve forest in Hojai district of the state in November 2022. On 21 December in the Batadrawa tehsil of Nagaon district of Assam 120 houses in Haidubi village, 40 in Kadamoni, 108 houses in Lalung gaon and 90 houses in Jamai Basti village were demolished. 56 houses have been demolished in Baghbar area of Barpeta district while in Sagunmari village of Bilashipara subdivision 30 houses have been demolished in December itself”, they added.

They emphasized how the BJP became irate when the CAA-NRC exercise failed to yield outcomes that were comparable to its expectations.

“Having failed in their designs of disenfranchising the Muslims in the state through the CAA-NRC exercise, the BJP is giving vent to its frustration by way of the eviction drive launched in different areas of Muslim population in the state in the name of having illegally occupied government land vacated. That this is being done specifically to target the Muslims is clear from the fact that Himanta Sarma government has been distributing land deeds to the indigenous people in the state who would also otherwise qualify as illegal encroachers. The same facility however has not been extended to Muslims in the state who have been living in their respective villages for generations”.

Himanta Biswa Sarma joined BJP on the eve of the 2016 assembly elections after defecting from the Congress. He has demonstrated greater loyalty than King Character after taking over as CM.

They also bemoaned the countries and Assamese society’s deafening silence over this reign of terror.

“It is distressing indeed that this reign of terror has been met with a deafening silence in the larger Assamese society, as also in the country at large. Neither do the political parties in the opposition seem to be bothered about the fate of these hapless Muslim families. Assamese society and the people in the country at large shall do well to remember that the governments since long have pitched one section of the people against the other on narrow chauvinistic lines to deepen the exploitation of the common masses”.

They called upon the Assamese people, all democratic minded people in the country, members of the civil society and different political parties to call an end to the brutal eviction drive of Assam government targeted against the Bangla speaking Assamese Muslims.