Kamrup Metropolitan District Administration and the Railway Department carried out an eviction drive in Guwahati's Jalukbari area on Friday. The drive was conducted to vacate a large 20-bigha piece of land.
The railway department had given 20 bighas of land to the Assam government. However, the land had been encroached on by settlers illegally.
The eviction drive today was carried out to clear out this land. As per reports, the settlers practices suspicious activities in the area.
Speaking on the eviction, an elderly person of the area said, "We received a notice some months ago stating that the land which we are residing belongs to the railway department. However, we have been living here for 40 years without any objections from anyone. But now, notices have started coming. We filed a case, after which the authorities initiated an eviction drive. We want to appeal to the Assam Government that we are Indigenous Assamese Muslims. Uprooting us from this land erases our decades of connection to this community. We request the government to provide us with protection from being evicted yet again."
"A case is ongoing, and the next hearing was scheduled for September 3. Yet, they carried out the eviction drive before the due date. Earlier, we were residing in Narengi's Pathar Quarry area, but we were evicted from there as well. Now wew ill be evicted from here too. Where will we go now?" another victim said.
