Reang community demands eviction drives to reclaim Hailakandi forestland

A CORRESPONDENT

SILCHAR: The local residents of the forest areas of south Hailakandi district, mainly belonging to the Reang community, alleged that an influx of outsiders in the last few years had outnumbered them in the region. On Monday, a delegate of the Reang community lodged complaints with the DFO Akhil Dutta and ADC (Revenue) asking them to initiate drives against the outsiders. They further appealed to the Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to launch eviction drives in the forest areas in south Hailakandi. Showing the voter list of the 1960s, the Reangs said that they were the majority in the entire forestland areas, but now they had been outnumbered. “People belonging to a separate religious community had gradually grabbed the land once our forefathers used to stay in and cultivate. The language these people speak is different from the local Bengali dialect,” a Reang youth said.

On the other hand, Milon Das, a young BJP leader who unsuccessfully contested the last Assembly election in Hailakandi, said that in the last one year, there had been an increase of eight thousand voters in the Hailakandi constituency alone.

“Evicted persons from the other parts of the state might enter here,” he hinted. However, Das said that when quizzed by the local residents, the suspected infiltrators showed their Aadhaar and voter cards which were issued in West Bengal. “We suspect these people might have come either from West Bengal or Bangladesh. Even the possibility of them being Rohingya cannot be ruled out,” he added.

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