After freeing the Kaziranga National Park of illegal encroachers, the Assam Government has now sent a strong warning to all the encroachers across the State and said that every inch of encroachments will be freed in a phased manner.
Blood spilled over the greens of the Kaziranga National Park on Monday after a section of people opposed the eviction drive, leading the security forces to apply force to evict them. The mayhem that followed led to the killing of two civilians and injury to many others, including policemen in the scuffle.
Assam Finance Minister, Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said that during the eviction drive in three villages near Kaziranga on Monday the district administration had demolished 331 houses and said that a similar fate is waiting for other encroachers in other parts of the State.
Sarma also attacked the former Congress Government for not only abetting the encroachments in and the world famous abode of one-horned rhinos but for violating an order passed by the Supreme Court in 2015 to clear the eviction in the three villages near the park. “The erstwhile Congress Government had built an lP school, an Anganwadi Centre and was constructing a road in Banderdubi village where the eviction drive took place yesterday,” Sarma said adding that how can an elected Government do so when there was an order by the Supreme Court to clear the encroachment last year.
Sarma also launched a scathing attack on the ‘vote bank politics’ of the Congress and said that the Congress abetted the encroachments in and around Kaziranga as part of their plan to change the demography of some districts in Upper Assam. “After the increase in minority population, the Congress was trying to push these people towards Upper Assam through Kaziranga area so that the demography of Upper Assam districts can be changed for political mileage,” he said.
He said that the ‘genuine’ citizens in the three villages near Kaziranga have vacated the lands on their own. “However, some people created the problem and opposed the eviction drive. These are not genuine citizens and that is the reason they created the problem fearing that they would not get the compensation for their lands,” he added.
Sarma also questioned the role of Congress government regarding some illegal encroachments in Mayong area in Morigaon district. “Over 400 families belonging to people with suspected nationality have encroached upon government lands in Mayong. The former government had said that they were flood affected people and need some time to vacate the area. Now, three waves of floods have swept the state in last three years and those people are yet to vacate the government land,” he said adding that the Congress should tell us how long our government should wait before evicting them.
Sarma hinted that the government would carry out eviction drives in Mayong soon and added that all illegal encroachments across the state would be cleared gradually.