309 families evicted from Assam grazing reserve

The authorities in northeastern Assam’s Biswanath district evicted 309 families from a village grazing reserve (VGR) on Sunday (August 17, 2025).

Officials in the district said some 600 security personnel, 20 excavators, and 10 bulldozers were deployed to clear 175 bighas or 23 hectares of land in the Japariguri VGR from encroachment.

District Commissioner Simanta Kumar Das said many families dismantled their houses and left after receiving notices on August 1 to vacate within 15 days. “The remaining structures, including a tea garden, were demolished,” he said. The encroachers, officials said, were mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims.

While organisations of indigenous communities have backed such eviction drives, the All-Assam Minority Students’ Union said the Biswanath exercise was carried out inhumanely and demanded a pause until the government ensures rehabilitation of the people targeted.

CM’s ‘hate-driven propaganda’

In his Independence Day speech, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma vowed to continue such eviction drives to free forestlands, grazing lands, and government revenue lands from encroachers of “doubtful citizenship”. He also warned the indigenous communities about a future where they will be at the mercy of “strangers” unless they defend their cultural identity.

Assam MLA and All-India United Democratic Front general secretary Rafiqul Islam criticised the Chief Minister for defaming Muslims. He also said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Assam government has been systematically keeping Muslim officers away from key positions.

Terming the Chief Minister’s Independence Day speech as “hate-driven propaganda” to polarise the people on religious lines, he told agencies that the BJP-led government has consciously not appointed any Muslim as the District Commissioner or Superintendent of Police, although there are several Muslim IAS and IPS officers in Assam.