There were no illegal immigrants among those evicted: Report

THE ASSAM GOVT HAD ALLEGED THAT THOSE EVICTED WERE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

GUWAHATI: Three months after a violent eviction drive was carried out at Dhalpur in Darrang district of Assam, in which two civilians were killed, an independent study on the incident has claimed that the evicted families were not illegal immigrants or land grabbers, as alleged by the state government.

The study, ‘Dhalpur-The Truth Behind’ by Guwahatibased Centre for Minority Studies, Research and Development (CMSRD) was carried out by 14 members who stayed in the area for 15 days and interacted with 517 of the 963 evicted families.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) responded to the report saying CMSRD should approach the court if it has issues with the eviction drive.

On September 23, two civilians were killed in clashes between evicted families and police, and 18 other people, including policemen, were injured during the eviction drive. The state government evicted people from the area to make way for an agricultural project for indigenous people.

The government alleged that those removed — Bengalispeaking Muslims a majority among them — were illegal immigrants who forcibly occupied government land as well as land of indigenous people and also settled on grazing land.

The CMSRD report said that of the 517 families surveyed, 514 had their National Register of Citizens (NRC) legacy data with them. Names of only three heads of families were found to be “doubtful” voters (D-Voters).

The NRC was updated in Assam to identify illegal immigrants (people who entered the state after March 1971 when Bangladesh came into being).

Of the 32 million applicants, 1.9 million were excluded from the final list released in August 2019.

“Since all the surveyed families have legacy data prior to 1971 they can’t be termed as either suspected Bangladeshi or people of Bangladesh origin since Bangaldesh came into existence on March 24, 1971,” said Zamser Ali, general secretary of CMSRD.

“It’s wrong to blame the BJP or RSS for the eviction drive. It was carried out by the government with permission from the court. If CMSRD has any issues they should approach the court,” said BJP spokesperson Rupam Goswami.