GUWAHATI: One person was killed and several others injured during a clash between police-forest personnel and evicted people in Assam’s Muslim-dominated Goalpara district on Thursday morning. The incident occurred at Paikan Reserve Forest, near the Meghalaya border.
According to officials, a joint team from the police and forest department had launched an eviction operation in the area when violence broke out.
“Some evicted people, living in makeshift tents, attacked the personnel, prompting them to retaliate,” a police official said.
Two civilians sustained gunshot injuries in the firing, and one later succumbed. Five to six members of the security personnel were also reported injured. Additional forces were deployed to control the situation, which remained tense through the day.
The eviction drive in Goalpara followed a similar operation in another Muslim-dominated district, Dhubri, where around 3,500 bighas of government land were cleared across three villages. Authorities said 1,069 families had been residing there.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recently stated that the evictions were aimed at stemming what he called a “demographic invasion” by people from a particular community.
The opposition has strongly criticised the mass eviction drives in Muslim dominated areas, calling it a part of the BJP's polarisation tactics ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections.
Assam Congress president Gaurav Gogoi accused the government of double standards, alleging that "several of them in the government own the highest amount of land.”
He further claimed that 18,000 acres belonging to indigenous, tribal, and minority communities had been handed over to industrialists from outside the state.