The Assam government on Sunday began an eviction drive in Biswanath district, displacing 309 families, officials said.
The eviction drive was started in the morning to clear encroachment on nearly 175 bigha or 23 hectare of land in the Village Grazing Reserve (VGR) in Japariguri, they said.
"The eviction drive is going on peacefully. There were 309 families who had encroached on 175 bigha of land. Notices were issued to them on August 1 to vacate the areas within 15 days," District Commissioner Simanta Kumar Das said.
He said all the families have already left the area, and many of them had dismantled their houses.
"We demolished the remaining houses. There was also one big tea garden. That is being dismantled now for the forestation drive later," he said.
The DC said 600 security personnel were deployed, and 20 excavators, along with dozens of tractors, were used during the eviction drive.
The encroachers were mostly from the Bengali-speaking Muslim community, another official said.
Visiting the site, All Assam Minority Students' Union (AAMSU) General Secretary Kuddus Ali Sarkar alleged that the Himanta Biswa Sarma government has been evicting people in an "inhuman manner".
"We demand an immediate halt to the eviction drive. Unless people are rehabilitated properly, no eviction should take place," he said.
Supporting the state government's steps to evict encroachments on public land, several ethnic organisations have started 'Miya Kheda Andolan' (movement to drive out Miyas) in the state.
'Miya' is originally a pejorative term used for Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam, and the non-Bengali-speaking people generally identify them as Bangladeshi immigrants. In recent years, activists from the community have started adopting this term as a gesture of defiance.
In his Independence Day speech, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that "aggression" has changed the demography of lower and central Assam, and now efforts are being made for it in upper and north Assam, in an apparent reference to the community.
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