All India United Democratic Front MP Badruddin Ajmal has written to President Droupadi Murmu urging her to direct the Assam government to stop eviction drives during the winter season and make alternative arrangements for those who have been dishoused.
In his letter dated December 28, Ajmal said that the eviction drive was inhuman and discriminatory. The letter was made available to the media on Thursday.
“The most objectionable point is that the eviction drive has been initiated in a selective and discriminatory manner by targeting members of a particular community,” Ajmal said in his letter. “Some of the people have been evicted from areas where they have been living for decades.”
Earlier this month, the Nagaon district administration in Assam had started a large-scale eviction drive in four villages to clear plots of government land of alleged encroachment, PTI reported.
This was the second drive.
During the first massive eviction drive on September 23 last year, two locals, including a 12-year-old child, were killed in police firing in the Sipajhar area of Darrang district. One of the victims, Moinul Haque, 28, was shot in the chest as he rushed towards a group of policemen and was trampled on by a government photographer.
Also read: Why eviction drives in Assam are no longer facing resistance
Ajmal, the MP from Assam’s Dhubri constituency, added in his letter that he and his party were not in favour of encroachment of government land.
“But it is also an undeniable fact that Assam is the state where flood and erosion make thousands of people homeless and landless every year,” Ajmal pointed out in the letter. “They take shelter on govt’s [government] land because they do not have any other option.”
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