‘Vacate Upper Assam in 24 hours’: Amid evictions, Miya Muslims given ultimatums

The Assam government on Sunday launched an eviction drive targeting about 350 Muslim families, most of them Bengali-origin or Miya Muslims, who had been living at the Nambor South Reserve Forest in the Golaghat district.

Amid the eviction drive, videos by news outlets showed Assamese nationalist groups going door to door threatening Miya workers to leave Upper Assam. Members of the groups were seen warning Miya Muslims to leave the Sivasagar district in Upper Assam, where ethnic Assamese communities are in the majority.

A video by News Live showed Situ Baruah of the Jatiya Sangrami Sena warning a Bengali-origin Muslim man from Hojai district in middle Assam and saying: “Shut up, you Miya.....Miyas have to vacate Upper Assam within 24 hours.”

The Golaghat district administration said that “encroached areas in Gelajan and 3 No. Rajapukhuri” were cleared on Sunday. The administration said that 350 families were evicted and nearly 1,000 bighas of forest land were reclaimed.

“The eviction drive was carried out peacefully, without any resistance, reflecting the coordinated planning and execution by the authorities on the ground,” the district administration said.

A district official told Scroll that most of those evicted were Miya Muslims who had encroached on forest land since the early 1980s. Some of them claimed to have settled in the forest land...

Read more