Assam’s Farmers in Merapani Tense over Eviction Notices from Nagaland

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: Tension has escalated in the last few days in the Assam-Nagaland border areas in Merapani in the Golaghat district. Hundreds of Assam’s farmers in the area have come out to protest and are seeking the state government’s intervention to protect their agricultural lands from people on the Nagaland side.

Farmers engaged in farming in the agriculture department’s Bholaguri Seed Farm, located in the border area, have been served notices by Naga people to vacate the land in which around 1,500 farmers have been engaged in agricultural activities since 1985. People from Nagaland are planning to cultivate oil palm trees in the around 1,200 acres of land of the farm. Nagaland has been claiming that the land where the seed farm is located belongs to them. This portion of land is part of the disputed border areas regarding which a case was filed earlier in the Supreme Court.  

According to farmers protesting on the roads, they have been paying taxes to the Assam government and casting their votes in Assam, and it is the duty of the state government to secure the land they have been farming on. They pointedly refuse to let go of the land they have been farming for decades. They also stated that they have approached the local administration, as the notices served on them are illegal, and officials have taken up the matter with their counterparts in Nagaland. The farmers are, however, not satisfied with the local administration’s efforts, as such steps were taken earlier also but failed to yield any results.

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