Five Parties Protest Eviction Drive and Killings at Dholpur in Assam

September 24, 2021

The Assam units of the CPI (M), CPI, CPI (ML), Asom Gana Morcha and RJD met today, 23 September, at the State Office of the CPI under the chairmanship of the CPI (M) State Secretary Deben Bhattacharyya. Comrade Munin Mahanta, State Secretary of the CPI explained objectives of the meeting. The Parties jointly issued the following statement to the press regarding the inhuman eviction drive being conducted by the State administration at Dholpur-Gorukhuti area under Sipajhar Revenue Circle of Darrang district in Assam :

The five parties register their strong protest and condemn the police brutalities and firing in the name of evictions being conducted by the Darrang district administration yesterday, September 23. Two poor peasants, namely Saddam Hussain and Md. Sarif were killed and several others were grievously injured due to the unwarranted and cruelest acts of police savagery. The Parties demand a judicial inquiry into the incident of police firing and killing headed by a sitting judge of the  Gauhati High Court, immediate halt to the eviction drive and rehabilitation of all the evicted families. The five Parties also demand adequate compensations to the families of those killed and injured. The Parties demand that all evictions in the State without proper rehabilitation be stopped forthwith. The barbaric eviction drive at Dholpur-Gorukhuti area was started in the name of proposed  Gorukhuti Agricultural Project and freeing the government land from 'illegal encroachment'  being occupied by 'suspected illegal migrants' as stated by the government administration. As a matter of fact, the State administration branded those local Muslim people who have been residing in the area for several decades as 'suspected foreigners' and 'illegal encroachers of government land'. The administration has evicted Muslim families of the locality in most inhuman manner and the eviction drive is communally designed, illegal and unconstitutional.

The Parties also condemned the provocative and communally sensitive utterances of the Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. He has recently and openly stated at Silchar that his administration would even take the help of the extra-constitutional bodies like the RSS to save Hindus from the Muslim aggression and to prevent Assam  from not becoming a 'Second Kashmir'. In fact, the Chief Minister has been leading the aggressive hate campaigns to create tensions and polarise the society in Assam on communal lines. The five parties, in their joint statement, appealed to all left democratic and secular parties and organisations, and all sections of the people in general, to defeat the RSS-BJP's gameplan patronised by the administration and to maintain peace, amity and communal harmony at any cost.

The meeting was also attended by CPI(ML) leaders Pankaj Das and Naren Borah, RJD state president Sonarul Shah Mustafa, Rajya Sabha member and president of the Asom Gana Morcha and CPI(M) leader Isfaqur Rahman.