GUWAHATI, Dec 29 (PTI): AIUDF Lok Sabha MP Badruddin Ajmal has urged President Droupadi Murmu to direct the Assam government to stop eviction drives during the chilly winter season and to make alternative arrangements for the affected people.
The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief in a letter to the President, made available to the media on Thursday, urged her to direct the state government to stop the “inhuman” eviction in the winter season, to provide land and financial help to the poor landless and homeless affected families and to stop “selective and discriminatory” eviction of people belonging to any particular community.
“The state government is carrying out eviction drives in the cold winter months, rendering thousands of poor people homeless and causing them immense difficulties and this inhuman action must be stopped immediately,” Ajmal said.
“The most objectionable point is that the eviction drive has been initiated in a selective and discriminatory manner by targeting members of a particular community. Some of the people have been evicted from areas where they have been living for decades,” Ajmal alleged.
The Dhubri MP further said that he would like to make it clear that he and his party were not in favour of encroachment of government land and “we do not have any objection if illegal encroachers are evicted, whoever they may be”.
The Assam government had carried out one of the largest eviction drives in the state at Batadrava, the birthplace of Vaishnav saint Srimanta Sankardeva, in Nagaon district on December 19 which affected around 5000 people, followed by eviction of 27 families and 17 business establishments who had encroached on a school land in neighbouring Morigaon district on December 23 and 45 families at No. 12 Satrakanara village in Barpeta district on December 26.
