DIBRUGARH, June 11 ? Troubled days are ahead for Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. Several ethnic organisations of the State today formed a joint action committee here to resist the ongoing eviction process, which the State Government has embarked upon, following a Supreme Court directive. The groups which would be constituents of the joint action committee include the Tribal Students? Federation, All Assam Moran Students? Union, All Assam Deuri Students? Union, All Tai Ahom Students? Union, Assam Sonowal Kachari Students? Union, Assam Tea Tribes Students? Association and the Tai Yuba Chatra Santha. The AJYCP and AASU have lent moral support to the new outfit.
Speaking to The Assam Tribune, the convenor of the committee, Milan Sonowal said the Assam Government has taken resort to large-scale eviction of indigenous Assamese people from their hearths in the name of recovering three per cent of the State?s total forest cover. He said the native population of the State is furious that the Government has selected the indigenous communities to face the brunt of the eviction process ?while doing nothing to evict the actual encroachers which are the tea gardens and illegal foreigners.?
A key activist of the Tirap Autonomy Demand Committee, Prasanna Turung said the Assam Government has failed to demarcate the State?s forests in more than 50 years since independence. He added that the ethnic people of the State are not encroachers and that flood, erosion and earthquake affected families have been routinely settled by the authorities in forested areas. He pointed out to a petition filed before the Gauhati High Court by 250 families of Philobari, Nagaon and Hollong Guttibari villages near Doom Dooma. These families were settled in these villages way back in 1956 after the earthquake of 1950. Faced with threats of eviction by the forest department, these families are seeking a reprieve from the Court, even as the verdict is awaited.
On the cards is an all out agitation to be spearheaded by the committee. ?We have no choice, as we do not want resettlement or rehabilitation. We cannot think of being pushed out of our homes our fathers built 40 to 50 years ago,? said a prominent leader of the Deuri students. Addressing newsmen on a separate occasion in the city today, the AGP spokesman Sarbananda Sonowal said: ?It has been our experience that Congress governments in Assam have always hounded the native population.? He too cited the case of 48 families in the Madhupur area near here, all of whom face the gloomy prospect of eviction. He said these families, like other local families residing near the forests are all flood and erosion affected families. He showed documents to prove that these 48 families were settled in the area in 1956 by the Dibrugarh (then Lakhimpur) district administration. He said he has written to the Prime Minister on the matter today, where he pleaded with Vajpayee to take steps to stop the ?indiscriminate eviction of indigenous families from their legitimate homes.?