The Guwahati High Court has directed the Assam government to conduct eviction drive against illegal encroachers at Lumding Reserve Forest area in Assam’s Hojai district, following the Dholpur eviction drive in Darrang district.

The State Government, in its affidavit, acknowledged that around 1000 hectares of land under the Lumding Reserve Forest got encroached. "…considering such encroachment, the State authorities have prepared a plan of eviction which (they) intend to implement in a phase-wise manner during October 2021 to February 2022."

"… the State Government is seized of the matter and proposing to take concrete actions. The action plan prepared by the State authority under the first phase of eviction for five days will be from October 2021 to November 2021. The 2nd phase for four days will be from November 2021 to December 2021. And the 3rd phase for five days will be conducted from January 2022 to February 2022," the Court order quoted the State government as saying.

The Guwahati High Court has given the order of eviction after hearing a PIL filed by former MLA of Hojai assembly constituency Shiladitya Dev.

The PIL (37/2021) sought direction from the Court to the State Government for taking necessary actions for clearance of encroached land, including the eviction, in the Lumding Reserve Forest.

Petitioner Shiladitya Dev told Aajtak/India Today TV that he filed a PIL before the Guwahati High Court in June this year regarding illegal encroachment in the Lumding Reserve Forest area.

"The Reserve Forest was notified as reserve area for wild elephants. But elephants can’t stay in the forest area, because there is no forest. I personally met the forest department and the officials told me that only 340 hectares of land is being encroached. When I visited the forest area, I saw that approximately 1,000 hectares of land of the reserve forest is being encroached upon," Shiladitya Dev said.

He further added, "Then I moved the high court and the court immediately has given an order that proper survey should be made by the government and the government found that more than 1,600 hectares of land is being encroached upon. May be in last two decades people have been coming there and encroaching the forest land, destroying the forest products, involved in smuggling and other criminal activities. Now the court has ordered that eviction should take place."

Shiladitya Dev claimed that probably 20,000 people are staying in the reserve forest area and all are illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

Image courtesy: The Sentinel