'Go back...': Himanta tells evicted Muslims, warns locals against sheltering them

Guwahati: Amid drive to evict Bengali-speaking Muslims from forests and government lands, Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday said the evicted people should not be given shelter.

"Our people are much more aware now. I don't think our people will cooperate with them much. I want them to go to the place from where they came, I have no objection. But our people should not give them shelter. Otherwise, the situation will again be bad.

"We have improved our situation by carrying out evictions and others," Sarma told reporters when asked about evicted people taking shelter near the eviction sites.

Although Sarma did not specify by whom he was referring to as "our people," government insiders said he was referring to all residents, other than Bengali-speaking Muslims, whom BJP considers as illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.

"A lot of land is still under illegal occupation. More than 29 lakh bigha land is still being illegally occupied. So it will take a lot of time, a lot of work is left to be done, if people co-operates, we will be able to do the work to protect our communities," he said. "Our people are crying for land patta, but they are occupying 300 to 400 bighas of government land."

AIUDF protest

Sarma's statement came on a day Bdruddin Ajmal-led AIUDF staged a protest alleging that Indian Muslims are being harassed by the BJP-led government in Assam through the eviction drive.

"By turning our forest into betelnut plantations, fishery, they are harassing us. Who is doing love jihad? It is happening to us. Who has done land jihad? It is happening to us. We are the ones who should cry but they are shedding tears," Sarma said.

Sarma earlier said 1.29 lakh bighas (over 42,500 acres) of land have been freed from encroachment since May 2021, when he assumed the charge as CM. Evictions have been carried out in Dhubri, Goalpara, Lakhimpur and Golaghat districts.

Eviction notices have been served to many others for evictions. Sarma claimed that most of the evicted people have land in their "home districts" but occupied land in other districts as part of plan for "demographic invasion" over the indigenous