Day after, many recall horror of eviction drive
DHOLPUR: Sheikh Farid wasn’t supposed to be there.
The 12-year-old was on his way back home from the local post office on Thursday after collecting his Aadhaar card. He had left home in the morning, happy at the prospect of receiving his first identity card.
The youngest of four siblings, Farid lived 2km from where government evictions had begun on Monday. The family hadn’t been served any eviction notice.
By evening, his lifeless body laid outside the family’s house in Assam’s Darrang district, the Aadhaar card peeking out of his pocket.
“My son was excited about getting his Aadhaar card. I have no idea how he got killed,” said Khalek Ali, his father.
Farid was caught in the violence that broke out during a drive to evict allegedly illegal settlers near the Brahmaputra banks on Thursday afternoon, and was one of two people felled allegedly by police bullets. “When his body was brought home, there was a bullet injury on his right chest,” added Ali.
Another 20 people, including 11 policemen, were injured in the clashes.
Hasna Banu was one of them. The 15-year-old, whose family had also not received an eviction notice, heard the commotion on Thursday and went to see what was happening. In the evening, she was brought home unconscious with a broken left arm.
“I went to see what was happening. Suddenly there was panic and people were fleeing. Someone hit my arm from behind and I fell unconscious. I was picked up by some locals who brought me home,” said the Class 7 student.
Banu’s father, Sayeed Ali, a farmer, said they didn’t take her to the local hospital because they were afraid of the district administration. Instead, they wrapped the injured hand with cloth and applied some herbs and traditional medicine.
The deaths of Farid and Mainul Haque – a 35-year-old resident who was seen chasing policemen before being apparently shot and collapsing to the ground — triggered widespread condemnation on Thursday and forced the government to set up a judicial probe.
Visuals of the incident showed a government photographer repeatedly jumping and kicking the apparently lifeless body of Haque. The photographer, Bijay Shankar Baniya, was arrested on Thursday night.
The eviction drive started on Monday in a remote region roughly spread over 25,595 acres — roughly five times the size of state capital Guwahati — a massive sandbar with the Brahmaputra on one side and several small distributaries crisscrossing the area.
In the area, roads are scarce and so is electricity supply.
Many of the residents are Bengali-speaking Muslims, who are mainly farmers and use motorcycles, horse-drawn carts or bullock carts, or ferry their produce to nearby markets.