Assam villagers vacate homes as deadline to clear encroached land ends

A large number of families in Kochutoli village in Assam's Kamrup (Metropolitan) district, which witnessed violence during a recent eviction drive, started vacating their homes with the deadline to clear "encroached land" ending on Monday, officials said.

The villagers were seen going with their belongings, including livestock, in vans.

According to officials, these villagers are "illegal settlers in the tribal belt".

Most of the alleged encroachers have land in other districts, like Darrang, Morigaon and Barpeta, and have started returning to their homes there, the officials said.

The Kamrup (Metropolitan) district authorities have set September 16 as a deadline to vacate the Kochutoli village.

Eviction notices were served to those "illegally occupying government land" and stringent action would be taken against those who would remain there after the deadline, one of the officials said.

A team from the Sonapur Circle office and the police had gone to Kochutoli village to evict Bengali-speaking Muslim villagers, who had previously been removed from the encroached land but had again returned there, he said.

During the eviction drive, the villagers, including women, had attacked the officials and policemen with sharp weapons, sticks and stones on September 12.

Two villagers were killed and over 35 people, including 22 government officials and police personnel, were injured in the violence. The police opened fire to disperse the mob.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the laws related to the tribal belts and blocks were promulgated when Gopinath Bordoloi was the first Congress CM in 1950 and this particular area has been under the tribal belt since then.

Sarma had said the eviction drive in the area would continue.

'We will clear the tribal belts and blocks of all encroachment by doubtful illegal settlers," he said.

He had alleged that the Congress "instigated people to come out and attack the officials and police personnel on duty', Sarma said.

Director General of Police G P Singh said the attack on police personnel was suspected to be a case of 'conspiracy' by a certain section as the eviction was continuing peacefully since September 9.

Meanwhile, separate delegations of Congress and AIUDF MLAs were prevented by pro-eviction tribal organisations from entering the village on Saturday.

The Congress alleged that the state government has "violated court orders by not issuing relevant notice for eviction from government land as there is a ruling by both the Supreme Court and Gauhati High Court in this regard".