'Dholpur eviction ploy to encroach on minority land'

GUWAHATI: An anti-displacement team of scholars from JNU and Delhi University, which visited Dholpur in Darrang district on Monday where a massive eviction drive in September had left hundreds of people homeless, said on Tuesday that the evicted minorities have become "stateless within the state".
Addressing a news conference here on Tuesday, they termed it a greater ploy to "encroach" upon the land of minorities, Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam and the Rohingya in Myanmar. The "inquiry team" visited the violence affected villages in Dholpur in the Sipajhar revenue circle. Dr Vikas Bajpai, faculty at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Professor Biswajeet Mohanty of Deshbandhu College, University of Delhi, were among the team members.
"Eviction has become a part and parcel of the larger political economy. Like here in Dholpur, in Rohingya-inhabited areas of Myanmar, too, the political class is targeting the minorities," said Professor Mohanty.
The Assam government has started a state agriculture project in the Dholpur area involving local youths, but not the 1,000 odd evicted Muslim families who are now taking shelter in makeshift camps near the Brahmaputra.
"The present condition of the forcibly evicted people is precarious. They are living in makeshift sheds made of tin, straw and bamboo, with no hygiene, safe drinking water, food and healthcare. There were reports that some NGOs and private bodies were supplying relief in the form of food and had installed hand pumps. But such help is like a drop of water in an ocean," read a statement by the team.
"It is remarkable that our team did not find any trace whatsoever of any government agency reaching out to these people to provide relief in any form, which further attests to the deliberate and nefarious intent of the government to inflict the carnage on the people," said Bajpai.