Guwahati: Assam’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday declared that eviction campaigns to clear government and forest land will continue in the state.
While addressing to media, the chief minister said, “Eviction is a continuous process and it won’t stop. We will clear forest and government lands (across the state) like to do in Batadrava and Dhalpur.”
The Assam chief minister further asserted that Nurul Huda, a Congress MLA from the Rupohihat Constituency, has worked closely with the state government on the present eviction effort.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on February 16 praised the government’s efforts to remove encroachment from the Burhachaproi wildlife sanctuary and said that the action was successful because an elephant had visited the areas that had been cleared.
The Chief Minister went on to describe the progress as “encouraging” and revealed that more than 2,000 hectares of land had been cleared in the previous three days.
”An encouraging sight! Our efforts to clear encroachment from Burhachapori WLS bore fruit almost instantaneously as a jumbo visited the evicted areas this evening. Over 2,000-HA land was cleared in Siali, Lathimari & other WLS areas in past 3 days without any untoward incident,” Sarma tweeted.
Assam government’s massive eviction drive in Sonitpur’s Burhachapori wildlife sanctuary razed illegally constructed schools, Anganwadi centres, and houses within the sanctuary.
The drive which started on February 14 morning amid heavy security force deployment continued till February 16.
The government launched a two-day eviction drive at the sanctuary to remove encroachment from 5976 bighas of land, and a large anti-encroachment effort was carried out, liberating roughly 1,892 hectares of land from unauthorised habitation.