Bhuban Pegu slams Dispur over Amchang eviction

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, Nov 30: Sanmilita Ga Shakti legislator from Joi constituency Bhuban Pegu has come down heavily on the Assam government for carrying out eviction drive at Amchang wildlife sanctuary in a complexly ‘inhuman’ manner.

 “By evicting the indigenous people in a totally inhuman manner from the Amchang wildlife sanctuary, the Government has committed an inexcusable crime,” Pegu told reporters here on Thursday. “The government is trying to evict the indigenous people of the state for the sake of some corporate houses, who also has encroached forest lands of Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary,” Pegu said. Blaming it on the Forest Department, he said the department is trying to change the boundary of the sanctuary for the sake of corporate houses.

“The government must rehabilitate all the evicted people in the same place from where they have been evicted failing which this government is bound to suffer,” he said.

“The way Government evicted the people from Anchang, in the same way one day people will oust the government from Dispur, if they are not rehabilitated,” Pegu added.

The Ga Shakti is an alliance partner of the BJP-led government in Assam. “We respect the high court verdict. The High Court never ordered to evict the revenue villages from Amchang, but the government has carried out eviction in revenue village as well,” he alleged.

Pegu said that the Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Ministry through a notification on May 7, 2017, stated that 37 villages are located in the eco-sensitive zone of Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary but many of them are revenue village.

The Joi MLA further claimed that even if this people have encroached upon the land, they cannot be encroached upon as per Forest Rights Act.

He further alleged that some bureaucrats have misled the government.

Pegu demanded a probe into the eviction by an independent agency.

The drive, which started on Monday, evicted over 700 families from three places in Amsang — Yusufgar, bajyotigar and Kangkangar. The state government now suspended the drive in view of school examitions and the weather getting colder.  On Wednesday, Devajit Saikia, Additiol Advocate General, as per Chief Minister Sarbanda Sonowal’s direction, made a verbal submission before Gauhati High Court’s Chief Justice, Justice Ajit Singh, regarding suspension of eviction drive at Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary.