In a shocking incident, a water supply project in Dhemaji district in Assam was named after Pakistan. When the Public Health and Engineering department installed a nameplate with the name ‘Pakistan Suba Water Supply Scheme’ at a water supply project at Bordalani Burhakuri village in Gogamukh in Dhemaji district, it caused a massive outrage from people.
After the nameplate came up, enraged members of Bir Lachit Sena applied black paint on the word ‘Pakistan’ in it, after allegedly the department did not take action despite the public outrage going on from the past couple of days. However, the department officials didn’t object when they blackened the name, and allowed them to cover it with paint.
Not just the nameplate, but the steel gate at the project also had the name Pakistan welded on it using steel bars. Later that was removed by employees of the department using hammers.
The project should have been named ‘Pak Sthan Suk’, but the PHE dept used the name Pakistan instead. The area is known as Pak Sthan, which means a place that can be reached through a winding road. But it has turned into ‘Pakistan’ in oral use. And somehow, that corrupted name entered the official records of the department, causing the incident.
The matter was also brought to the notice of the department minister Ranjeet Kumar Dass who assured to take strict actions against people who committed mistakes. Responding to one such tweet by a netizen Pankaj Bhattacharjee, the minister said that he had a word with the MLA of Dhemaji Ranoj Pegu and director of Jal Jeevan Mission Assam, Akash Deep. “This shall be resolved as quickly as possible & prompt necessary action will be taken,” he said.
Thanks for bringing this to our notice. I personally had a word with the Hon’ble MLA of Dhemaji Shri @ranojpeguassam & @JJM_Assam Mission Director, This shall be resolved as quickly as possible & prompt necessary action will be taken. https://t.co/FxZYiiJJKq
— Ranjeet Kumar Dass (@RanjeetkrDass) November 10, 2021
Now the project has been named after the village Burhakuri Dakhin Suk after the revenue village Burhakuri under which the area falls.
The official explains how Pak Sthan Suk became Pakistan
The Subdivision officer of Dhemaji (Sadar), Nandita Roy Gohain said that the word ‘Pakistan’ mentioned in the nameplate of the project was a mere spelling error. She said that the original name of the area where the project is situated is ‘Pak Sthan Suk’ – which means a location that can be reached through a winding stretch. But following philological distortion, it became Pakistan Suk. For years this distorted name has been in circulation and quite surprisingly this distorted name found place in the official documents of Assam. The official record of PHED suggests that this name has been in use since 1992.
Gohain said that the ancestors of the present residents gave the name Pak Sthan Suk. She said that it was an isolated land once due to the distant location, which was inhabited by people of Ahom and Chutia community.
The village head of Burhakuri, Parul Chutia said that irrespective of mistakes in the government documents they never used Pakistan Suk in their official communication. Pak Sthan Suk is used among the four segments of this village with 249 families and the existing project was brought for the residents of Pak Sthan Suk.
