Assam: AAMSU seeks PM’s intervention over eviction drives

‘Why don’t the sympathisers of encroachers advise the landless people to move the state government with applications seeking lands instead of encroaching upon forest lands, wetlands, and lands for PGR and VGR?’

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: At a time when the Assam Government has been on an all-out drive for the protection of, as it says, ‘jaati, maati, and bheti’ from encroachers, the All Assam Minority Students’ Union (AAMSU) has taken the issue to the national level, seeking intervention from the Prime Minister.

Hundreds of AAMSU workers and supporters staged a dharna at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi today. They raised full-throttle slogans against the eviction drives taking place in Assam. They sought intervention of the Prime Minister in, as they say, ‘an intensifying humanitarian and constitutional crisis unfolding in Assam.’

In its memorandum to the Prime Minister, the student union said, “We appeal to your conscience and statesmanship to take immediate remedial action in the interest of human dignity, constitutional governance, and the rule of law.”

As often as not, the AAMSU or their sympathisers, like the Congress, AIUDF, CPI(M), etc., defend encroachment of land in Assam on the ground that the encroachers are erosion-affected landless people, besides raising other humanitarian issues. This lot of sympathisers reran the same issues to oppose the eviction drives that took place in the Dhubri, Goalpara, Kamrup (M) (Sonapur), etc., districts in the state.

A conscience-pricking question on this issue is, ‘Why don’t the aforesaid sympathisers advise the landless people to move the state government with applications seeking lands instead of encroaching upon forest lands, wetlands, and lands for PGR and VGR?’ As per the standing order of the Supreme Court of India, there cannot be any encroachment of forest lands and wetlands, besides other protected lands.

Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma has been appealing to the bona fide Indian citizens, who are landless, to approach the government seeking lands. He keeps saying that his government is ready to rehabilitate such genuine landless people as per the rules. “However, very few people approach the government for their rehabilitation after every eviction drive in the state. It makes amply clear that they are either not bona fide citizens of India or not landless people,” the Chief Minister said.

Also Read: CPI demands immediate halt to eviction drives in Assam,

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