AASU backs forest evictions, seeks action against 'patron' politicians, officials

Guwahati, Aug 9: Supporting the eviction drive from the notified forest areas of the State, the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) has demanded that the political leaders and forest officers, under whose patronage the encroachments were taking place, should be brought to book.

Talking to The Assam Tribune, AASU president Utpal Sarma pointed out that such large-scale encroachments are not possible without the patronage of political leaders and Forest Department officials. While evicting the encroachers, the Government should also take action against such officials so that no one would dare to indulge in such activities in future.

Sarma pointed out that as per Clause 10 of the Assam Accord, all encroachments should be evicted. But successive Governments did not take any steps for the implementation of that clause of the Accord. He said that all the evicted people are not landless. Some have their own land in other parts of the State and then destroy the reserved forests to occupy large plots of land.

The AASU demanded that the Government should first determine whether the encroached persons are genuine Indian citizens or not. In the second phase, the landless genuine Indian citizens should be given land. But they should not be shifted from their place of origin to other districts, and doing so may lead to a change in the demographic pattern.

The AASU president expressed the view that the detection and deportation of foreigners is the job of the Government, as the common people do not have the mechanism to determine who is an Indian citizen or who is not. He also said that a proper National Register of Citizens (NRC) could have been helpful in identifying foreigners living illegally in Assam. But unfortunately, the NRC, which was published in 2019, is full of errors. He demanded that the Government file an affidavit in the Supreme Court calling for re-verification of the NRC. “The Government is saying that, like us, it is also not satisfied with the NRC. But unfortunately, till date, no affidavit has been filed by the Government on the issue,” he added.