Guwahati: At least 90 houses in Assam’s Karimganj were bulldozed during an anti-encroachment drive by the district administration Saturday. The drive took place in what locals say is a Muslim-dominated area of Patharkandi town in Karimganj district which borders Tripura and Bangladesh.
“Ninety houses, kacha and pucca (mud and permanent) have been demolished. Twenty JCBs were brought in… there are several hundred bighas of encroached land and there are many structures, so we are demolishing them in phases,” Arpita Dutta Mazumder, the Patharkandi circle officer (CO), told reporters Saturday afternoon.
Notices had been furnished in advance to the owners of these houses, she said, adding that authorities had also made announcements and published details of the anti-encroachment drive in newspapers.
Locals affected by it say they have valid documents for the land, a claim Mazumder refutes. “The papers they have shown are internal agreements, it’s not the same as the official documents,” she said.
ThePrint reached Mukul Yadav, deputy commissioner of Karimganj district, via calls and messages but did not get a response. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
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‘Nowhere to live’
Videos shot minutes before the anti-encroachment drive began show locals arguing with the district officials and the police. “What will we do if you break our houses,” they could be heard asking the police.
“I’ve made the house with a lot of difficulty, there are 15 of us living here, now we have nowhere to live. We’ve been living here for four years now,” Amar Hussain, a resident of the area, told reporters.
Asked about the drive in Patharkandi, local BJP MLA, Krishnendu Paul, told ThePrint: “There have been complaints that these people are coming from outside and encroaching on tea garden land owned by Assam Tea Corporation in the area. The tea garden panchayat has also given a memorandum against the encroachers.”
Anti-encroachment drives like the one in Karimganj are routine in Assam.
In its manifesto ahead of the 2021 Assam Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had promised voters that if voted to power, it would “free” government land from “encroachers”.
To that effect, similar anti-encroachment drivers were carried out in Jamurihat in Sonitpur district and Lanka in Hojai district last year.
In September last year, two people had died and several were injured in clashes between protesters and the police during an anti-encroachment drive in Sipajhar in Darrang district.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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