Guwahati: One individual lost their life and multiple others sustained injuries after police in Assam’s Goalpara district discharged firearms on Thursday to disperse an agitated crowd, who had been removed from a reserve forest the previous week.

Law enforcement and forestry officials conducted an eviction operation in the Paikan Reserve Forest in western Goalpara on July 12, displacing over 1,000 families and clearing approximately 150 acres of land.

Assam: Two fatalities and numerous injuries reported due to a landslide; 10 individuals feared trapped beneath the rubble.

However, many of those evicted returned and rebuilt some shelters. Tensions escalated when a police and forest personnel team returned on Thursday morning to carry out another eviction.

“A significant number of individuals charged at the police team, throwing stones and attacking with bamboo poles. Initially, the police fired shots into the air, but this did not dissuade them. As the crowd became increasingly aggressive, our forces were compelled to fire. One person died, and several others were injured. Many of our personnel also suffered injuries during the mob’s assault,” stated a police officer in Goalpara.

Eviction under BJP administration

The eviction at Paikan represents the latest in a series of similar operations conducted in Dhubri and Goalpara in Lower Assam, as well as in Lakhimpur district in North Assam.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recently announced that 260 square kilometers of land have been reclaimed from “encroachers” during eviction operations since his government took office in May 2021.

Sarma indicated that forest areas, wetlands, village grazing lands, and other government properties had been unlawfully occupied by individuals of a “specific religion” as part of a strategy for “demographic invasion” against the indigenous population of Assam.

Similar incidents of gunfire occurred during eviction operations in Darrang district in 2021 and at Kasutoli near Guwahati last year, resulting in four fatalities.

The opposition Congress and other parties have accused the eviction drive, which they claim targets Muslims, of being part of the BJP’s “polarization tactics” ahead of the Assembly elections scheduled for early next year.

Rahul Gandhi states that our ‘babbar shers’ will ensure Himanta ends up in jail.

On Wednesday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accused Sarma of “seizing” land from impoverished individuals to transfer it to Adani, Ambani, and Ramdev.

Conversely, the BJP asserts that the initiative was implemented to safeguard the land and rights of indigenous people against the “illegal Bangladeshi migrants.”