Guwahati: Assam Trinamool Congress (ATMC) president Ripun Bora has termed the eviction drive at the Silsako Beel near Chachal in Guwahati as an act of human rights violation.
Ripun Bora had visited the site where the eviction took place and took stock of the situation.
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Bora speaking on the issue said that the unwarranted eviction of the people living there was condemnable and a gross violation of human rights.
He said that before evicting them there should have been a process for them to be rehabilitated elsewhere or at least a window for them to move out of the area.
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Bora further added that the government seem to have been stepping away from the commitments it made in terms of indigenous people in the state.
One of the residents in the area who was evicted said that they were not served any notices before being evicted. “We were left out in the rain while our houses were being demolished by bulldozers”, he added.
He further added, “We are indigenous people and Himanta Biswa Sarma had promised that no indigenous people would be evicted from anywhere in the state.”
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Another person added, “The CM committed last week that no one in the state would be evicted if they are indigenous and only after that, we have built our house. It seems all our dreams were scattered for supporting them.”
One of the residents, Nityaranjan Goswami said, “I am a Goswami, can I ever be an illegal immigrant? How can we be termed, encroachers? We were given holding numbers of houses, electricity connection as well as a house number by GMC but still, our houses were demolished.”
Another woman who broke down in front of Bora expressed her condition before breaking down to tears.
She explained how she was not given any time to take out anything from her house. She said that she does not even have water to drink now.
The residents who are accused of encroachment claim that they do not even have enough food eat. “Our children are only eating biscuits”, one resident added.