2,000 evicted from forest land in Assam's Goalpara

In yet another eviction drive in Assam's Goalpara district, at least 2,000 people were evicted from government land, officials said on Tuesday.

A senior government official said, "Four hundred fifty families, who illegally settled in Bandarmatha Reserve Forest, spread across 118 hectares, in Lakhipur range of the district. It will bring down the man-elephant conflict to a great extent."

According to the district administration, the eviction drive was carried out on the directives of Gauhati High Court.

Moreover, notices were served to the "illegal settlers" much before the anti-encroachment drive.

"The High Court has ordered to remove illegal settlers in the forest land to tackle increasing man- animal conflicts in various places of Goalpara district," Goalpara Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), Tejas Mariswamy, said.

Heavy security personnel, including officials from the Forest department, were deployed to carry out eviction drives peacefully.

Mariswamy claimed that the anti-encroachment drive was amicably concluded because the majority of those who had unlawfully residing in the area have left before the drive began on Tuesday.

According to the forest official, one Jal Jeevan Mission unit that had a dwelling and an above water tank was destroyed.

"Man-elephant conflict claims the lives of 25 individuals on an average. Removing all illegal settlements from our forest areas will be a major step toward ending this conflict," he said.

The DFO added that throughout the past year, nine eviction operations were conducted in Goalpara, clearing nearly 550 hectares of encroached forest area.

In Kosutoli locality in Sonapur area of the Kamrup district, a routine eviction drive recently descended into violence.

A violent clash broke out between the local police and the residents when the police attempted to remove unlawful colonies on a 100-bigha plot of land that housed about 150 people, resulting in the tragic deaths of two inhabitants and injury to several others.

Two persons identified as Juwahid Ali and Haider Ali died in the violence and at least 22 policemen, including a woman constable and Revenue Circle Officer Nitul Khatoniar got injured.