Assam CM sniffs conspiracy behind landless people moving to areas dominated by ‘Hindus or Assamese Muslims’

Amid criticisms of targeted eviction from government lands, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has sniffed a conspiracy behind people with their roots in present-day Bangladesh travelling miles to settle in areas dominated by “Hindus or Assamese Muslims”.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in Assam has been carrying out a series of eviction drives since June. Some 3,500 families, mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims, have been evicted from reserve forests and wetlands so far.

They are said to have encroached upon government-owned lands after being displaced by riverbank erosion across the State.

“Why are they moving to places 200-300 km from their native places to where Hindus or Assamese Muslims live? Our people are suffering from insecurity as a result. This is an issue beyond eviction; there is a hidden conspiracy to make us a minority,” the Chief Minister said after an eviction drive in the Goalpara district on Saturday (July 12, 2025).

Asserting that the demographic balance in Assam was being threatened due to such migration of people, he said the phenomenon needs to be investigated to find out whether it is poverty-driven or a conspiracy with political leaders behind it.

“During an eviction in Lakhimpur (northeastern Assam), we found that the encroachers were from South Salmara (western Assam) and Sribhumi (southern Assam). If I am landless, will I not look for land in my district?” Mr. Sarma said.

Citing the example of the Sarupathar constituency in eastern Assam’s Golaghat district, he claimed that people from Dhing and Rupohi in central Assam’s Nagaon district settled there in large numbers to change the demographic pattern.

Last week, the State government carried out two major eviction drives in the Dhubri and Goalpara districts to clear more than 4,500 bighas (1,485 acres) of encroached land, including reserve forests.

More than 2.64 lakh acres of government land were under encroachment across the State, Mr. Sarma said. “We don’t like carrying out eviction drives and pushing people out. But the Supreme Court and the (Gauhati) High Court have given strict orders that forest land, VGR (Village Grazing Reserve), and PGR (Professional Grazing Reserve) land should not be encroached upon,” he told journalists in Darrang district.

The eviction drives would continue until government lands were freed from encroachers, he said.

Data tabled by Forest Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary in the Assembly in March showed people of the State had been encroaching upon more than 2.5 lakh hectares of forest land, followed by encroachment by neighbouring States on 83,000 hectares, and by tea gardens on over 1,000 hectares.

Cry of discrimination

Opposition parties, including the Congress, said migrant Muslims were being targeted primarily to create space for power and industrial projects by corporate bigwigs close to the BJP’s central leadership. They also alleged a design to polarise the State ahead of the Assembly election, to be held by May 2025.

Criticising the eviction drives, the Congress promised compensation for all Indian citizens whose houses had been bulldozed, if it came to power in Assam.

The Jamaat Ulama Council slammed the “discriminatory” eviction drives, which it said affected the Muslims disproportionately. It called for an immediate halt to such “unjust” measures.

On Saturday (July 13, 2025), the All Assam Minority Students’ Union organised Statewide protests condemning the “inhuman” eviction drives that it said displaced thousands of poor and marginalised families across the State. The union also submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi through district officials, seeking his intervention to stop the “anti-people” actions.