Assam government headed by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has informed Guwahati High Court that it has earmarked 130 acres of land to rehabilitate the displaced families of Gorukhuti in Dholpur of Darrang district provided they are valid citizens.
The government said the same through the affidavit in response to the notice issued to the Assam government by the High court while hearing a PIL filed by Leader of the Opposition Debabrata Saikia as well as a suo motu PIL admitted by the court regarding violence during the eviction. The hearing took place on November 3 and the matter is being heard by the bench, headed by Chief Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Kakheto Sema.
In the Dholpur eviction case the government said that other than valid citizenship, there were a set of other requirements that will be taken care of while relocating such persons and families to a new proposed habitat. These requirements include whether or not they are soil erosion-affected and landless.
“An area of about 1,000 bighas (about 134 hectares) of land in the southern part of No 1 & No 3 Dholpur village has been earmarked for relocating the evicted persons subject to verification of the status of erosion affected and landless status in their respective original places and districts, citizenship and existing rehabilitation policy of the state,” the affidavit by the government said.
With this, the BJP government has also categorically said the evicted families of Dhalpur village in Gorukuti will not be paid any compensation as they are encroachers.
Sipajhar Revenue Circle Officer Kamaljeet Sarma, who represented the Assam government, has stated that the occupants of the areas were encroachers and under the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886, they were liable to be evicted at any time. He told the court that the entire case was related to the eviction of encroached land and no acquisition of land was involved. Hence, the question of resettlement, rehabilitation and compensation, etc as per the Land Acquisition Act was irrelevant.
The government has further told the court that families evicted from encroached land in Dholpur are not erosion-affected migrants as claimed in the PIL hence they are not eligible for any benefit under Assam Rehabilitation Policy 2020. “The claim that the occupants of Dholpur Char and their ancestors were forced to migrate from their respective original place of residence due to devastating floods and land erosion does not exist in the revenue files,” the affidavit said.
However, the government has also said that as of now to clear remaining encroached land, no coercive measure is being taken and efforts are being made to convince encroachers to voluntarily vacate the demarcated area. The officer has explained to the court that under the rule if a family is displaced and forced to migrate to other places due to soil erosion caused by heavy floods, such displaced families are issued a certificate by the concerned revenue circle. He told the court there is no record of these encroachers and their forefathers.
Now the High court has granted a week’s time to the Assam government to file a detailed counter affidavit and fixed December 14 for the next hearing.
Darrang violence exposes conspiracy to demographic changes
In September this year, the Assam government conducted an anti-encroachment drive to clear land belonging to the government and temple at the Dholpur in the Garukhuti area near the Sipajhar town in Darrang district. But the situation turned violent after encroachers attacked security forces. While 9 policemen were injured in the attack by the mob of illegal encroachers, 2 attackers were killed in retaliatory police firing. Dholpur is an area with 25000 acres of land along with a 5,000 years old Shiva temple and a cave. Over the years the locality witnessed a mass influx of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Around 30,000 acres of land was encroached upon by Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had warned that through such land grabs and settlements attempts were made to change the demographic structure of Assam that can alter election results in Vidhan Sabha constituencies. He stated that Bangladesh-origin Muslims have a clear strategy to take over 3-5 constituencies each election by increasing their population, eventually grabbing power in the state after a few decades.
