Assam starts massive eviction drive around birthplace of Srimanta Sankardev

The eviction drive started around 6 am on Monday and is continuing well without any opposition or violence from residents, said Nagaon district administration.

The Assam government on Monday started an eviction drive to clear encroachments from nearly 1,000 bigha of land (1.35 sqkm) around Batadraba Than, the birthplace of Srimanta Sankardev, the 15th-16th century saint-scholar and socio-religious reformer, people familiar with the development said.

Assam: A JCB machine demolishes an illegal construction during an eviction drive in the 1,200 bighas (nearly 397 acres) of land from encroachment by alleged illegal migrants, at Batadrava, in Nagaon on Monday.(ANI)

This is the first such drive after the Commission for Review and Assessment of Problems of Satra Lands in Assam (CRAPSLA) submitted its report earlier this month on encroachments in ‘satras’ (Vaishnavite monasteries founded by Srimanta Sankadev) across the state. The panel was set up last year.

“The eviction drive started around 6am on Monday and is continuing well without any opposition or violence from residents. Considering the area that needs to be evicted, the entire operation could take three days to complete,” said a senior district police officer in Nagaon district about 125km east of Guwahati.

“We had several rounds of talks with residents who understood that they were occupying government land and agreed to clear their settlements themselves. Till Monday morning, most of them have taken down their illegal structures from the area and shifted elsewhere on their own,” the police officer added.

The administration had been preparing for the eviction drive for nearly a week. About 700 personnel from the Assam police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) have been deployed to ensure peace.

Security personnel have been camping in the area since December 13 and conducted a flag march. The district administration has also prohibited large gatherings under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Produce.

“Around 136 ‘bighas’ (45 acres) of our land which was earlier used for cultivation started getting encroached around 1986-87. When the BJP-led government came in 2016, they removed the encroachers,” said Devananda Deva Goswami, ‘satradhikar’ or the religious and administrative head of Batadraba Than.

“But while the land of the ‘Than’ is free of encroachment, there was rampant encroachment on nearly 900 ‘bighas’ of government land in our periphery. We are happy that action has been taken to remove encroachers. We want all illegal structures including religious ones to be removed from the area,” he added.

In its interim report, CRAPSLA said that out of the 33,265 bighas of land under possession of ‘satras’, 7,504 bighas of land is under encroachment. The highest area under encroachment was found in the Barpeta district where 5,545 bighas of land were found encroached by illegal settlers.

According to government figures presented in the state assembly in September, a total of 4,449 families have been evicted for allegedly encroaching on government land since May, 2021 when the second Bharatiya Janata Party-led government took charge in Assam.

According to government figures, 2,153 families were evicted in the Darrang district followed by 805 families in the Lumding reserve forest in the Hojai district and 404 from government land in the Dhubri district.

While most evictions have been peaceful, two persons were killed in police firing and nearly 20 others injured at Dholpur in Darrang district in September last year in clashes between police and residents during one of the first such drives.

Following the eviction at Dholpur, the state government launched the Garukhuti Project, an ambitious venture to free land from encroachers and start agricultural and other allied activities in the area by engaging indigenous local youths.