Letters To The EDITOR- Eviction from forest reserve

Eviction from forest reserve

We always contend that what our government cannot do or hesitate to do, apex court comes to our rescue, particularly when it comes to freeing the forest reserves occupied illegally by the dubious foreign nationals. There is no doubt about the fact that some of our indigenous people also occupy land of such forest reserves. Indigenous people mostly rendered homeless by the erosion of the Brahmaputra or its tributaries are compelled to go searching for some greener pastures, hence the occupation. But we can see many taking shelter in the highlands, say on the embankments. In our childhood, we could see many of our friends residing by the side of the Brahmaputra who had been victims of erosion, had been suitably accommodated by the government. Now that the member of such accessible reserves is fast dwindling, the government machinery fails to provide land to those rendered homeless by the erosion of the river. Undoubtedly, in the wake of the strictures of the Supreme Court by July 24 the work of eviction must be complete and the fate of those occupying reserved land illegally is hanging in the balance with optimum chance of getting evicted. There are many who entered Assam illegally through the porous Bangladesh border, how their cases would be dealt, it is for the government to decide. But for the indigenous people to be evicted we really have a soft corner.

Ashok Bordoloi,

Dibrugarh.