Evicting 'Miya Muslims' only: Assam CM Himanta defends eviction drive in state

Guwahati: "We are evicting only Miya Muslims," Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Monday while reacting to charge by the Opposition parties that the ongoing eviction drive was targeting Muslims.

"Miya Muslims are being evicted as they encroached on the forests, wetlands, village grazing land...Our people are not in the forests. Even if some belonging to Bodo and Mising tribes are living in forests, they will get land patta under the forest rights Act. Non-tribals won't get such benefit," Sarma told reporters in Chirang, a district in Bodoland Territorial Council in western Assam.

Bengali-speaking Muslims are referred to as Miya Muslims in Assam, whom BJP targets as "illegal migrants" from neighbouring Bangladesh and as a "threat" to the indigenous Assamese.

"Why are the Miya Muslims encroaching on the forest land? They have a lot of land in the char (riverine) areas. They have half of Assam's land in the chars. Our people are not going to the chars. They are also encroaching on land in upper Assam districts like Sivasagar, Jorhat. How will the Assamese people survive?" Sarma said.

"The evictions will continue despite the protests," Sarma added.

Opposition charge

Sarma's statement came a day after Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) alleged that Muslims were being illegally targeted to push BJP's "polarisation politics" ahead of Assembly elections in the state. On Monday, All Assam Minority Students' Union staged a protest in Muslim-dominated Dhubri district, where a large number of Bengali-speaking Muslim settlers were evicted in July.

Sarma earlier said 1.39 lakh bighas of forest and government land have been cleared from encroachers since 2016, when BJP formed it's first government in Assam. The drive was revived in June this year carrying out evictions in Dhubri, Goalpara, Nalbari, Lakhimpur and Golaghat districts.