Four years ago, violent Assam eviction pushed them out of farming. Now, PM calls them infiltrators

On September 14, on a visit to Assam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for freeing “lakhs of bighas of land from infiltrators”.

He made special mention of Garukhuti in Darrang district.

In September 2021, the Bharatiya Janata Party government demolished homes of 2,000-odd Bengali-origin Muslim families in the area as they had allegedly encroached on public land.

They were evicted to make way for an organic farming programme meant to create employment only for those considered “indigenous” to Assam.

It turned out to be one of the most violent eviction drives in Assam, with the police opening fire when the demolition ran into resistance. Two people were killed, among them a 12-year-old boy.

Garukhuti set the template for eviction drives in the state under the Himanta Biswa Sarma government, which have often been marked by police excesses.

In the last nine years of Bharatiya Janata Party rule in the state, about 17,600 families, the majority of them Muslims of Bengali origin, have been evicted from government land, according to data provided by the state revenue and disaster management department and district authorities. At least eight Muslims have been shot dead during the evictions.

There is popular support for the action against Bengali-origin Muslims, also known as Miya Muslims, who are viewed in...

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