PGSU pleads CM not to evict settlers

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Dec 3: A delegation of the Post Graduate Students’ Union (PGSU), Gauhati University moved State Chief Minister Sarbanda Sonowal with a memorandum on people of suspected tiolities allegedly encroaching upon 77,420 bighas of sar land in the Sipajhar area in Darrang district.

Addressing the press in the city today, PGSU president Sanjib Talukdar, along with Ashraful Islam, said: “We did pay a visit to the spot. The situation there has come to such a pass that if the administration fails to evict the settlers from the sar, the indigenous people residing in the area will resort to evict them. In such an event, the situation may escalate. The people living in the sar area are a panicked lot. If the situation escalates, a commul flare-up can’t be ruled out.”

Talukdar, however, said: “A section of people in the area claims that the people living in the sar at Dholpur under  Sipajhar police station aren’t Bangladshis. They’re genuine Indian citizens who have been staying in the area for 35-45 years. They’re ones badly ravaged by erosion and floods. We did talk to the mainstream people of Sipajhar and the indigenous Muslims of Gorukhuti market. They say that those residing in the sar are genuine Indians. We also went to some of the houses in the sar and examined their documents backing their citizenship claim. The people of the sar haven’t encroached upon the land by driving any local people away. They purchased the land from some locals and brokers. The land looks green with vegetables grown there. There are around 6,000 people residing on the sar where there are as many as 37 government primary schools, four private high schools, an HS school and 39 anganwadi kendras. There’s also a 30-bed government’s model hospital in the sar, besides two PHCs. As many as 13 fair price shops and 35 masjids are also there in the sar. We appeal to the government not to evict the people of the sar without making any provisions for their rehabilitation.”