Thirty-five-year-old Malati Das, Amina Khatun, and Rashida Ahmed have been grievously injured and admitted to the ICU at Guwahati Medical College. Malati suffered a bullet injury and 75 others too are injured, when the BJP-RSS led Assam government, with the help of police, unleashed terror to evict tribals and grab land. Here’s a report, in Different Truths.
Thousands of tribals have been uprooted on 27th November by the BJP-RSS led Assam government with the help of armed police which resorted to unprovoked brutal lathi-charge, fired teargas and rubber bullets, unleashed elephants and excavators in the Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary that shares the boundary with Guwahati city. Almost 2,000 policemen, 20 executive magistrates and the entire forest department, district administration conducted the eviction of the poor tribals and forest dwellers who have been living there for many decades. They flattened over almost 700 houses, depriving almost 3,000 families of their dwelling. The forest department has never delineated the boundary of the sanctuary or demarcated the protected area also, according to a media release.
Thirty-five-year-old Malati Das, Amina Khatun, and Rashida Ahmed have been grievously injured and admitted to the ICU at Guwahati Medical College. Malati suffered a bullet injury and 75 others too are injured, it was informed.
Junu Sangma, the matriarch of a Garo family in the area, said her family had lived there for generations, her husband and his parents died there. As tribals they have lived amidst the forest and hills, but have not been given the protection of the New Forest-dwellers Rights law, the release added.
Several families of the state’s Mising tribe too moved to the area in the winter of 1997 when their home and fields in a village on the north bank of the Brahmaputra River in Dhemaji district had been washed away. Several migratory labour too live in the area without any government help to provide them a dwelling. However, the state government is on a land capturing spree to increase urban expansion for the rich and well to do, it was stated.
The state government’s moves are complemented by central government’s brazen policy to completely weaken environmental governance and use MoEF as a clearance ministry for big industries. Cement companies AG Cement and Raksha Cement, Tea Gardens, coke, calcination, brick kilns continue to exist in this area and have not been touched.
Last year, in Kaziranga, two residents were shot dead by the Assam Police, while resisting an eviction drive, it was informed.
The CEC of AIKMS condemns this brutal attack by BJP-RSS government on the houses and livelihood of tribals and other forest dwellers. It is the clear violation of the Forest Right Act. If natural resources are not the wealth of Assam’s communities, who do they belong to? AIKMS demands immediate suspension and arrest of the officials who went to evict the tribals and complete rehabilitation of all evicted people with the benefit of land titles as per the Forest Rights Act 2005, the media release pointed out.
©Different Truths News Service (DTNS)
Photos from the Internet
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