GUWAHATI: Three months after the eviction drive in Dholpur in Assam's Darrang district, minority families fear their temporary home on the flood-prone banks of the Brahmaputra may become their permanent address.
From 23 families before 1971, the number of flood and erosion victim families had grown beyond 1,500 in the area in five decades. Politicians from the ruling BJP also questioned the citizenship of many settlers, though later on they were accepted as Indian nationals from Darrang and neighbouring districts. Even as the encroacher tag remains intact in the government version, the Centre for Minority Studies, Research and Development, Assam & BTAD Citizen Rights Forum, in its report published on Thursday, stated that out of 21 villages closely attached to Dhalpur, nine villages had no population in 1971.
Five other villages close to Dholpur had a population of less than 100 in 1971. It said huge erosion, the changing course of the river, and heavy floods during the rainy season were the main reasons rendering the area inhabitable. But, in no case, the study said the Neo-Assamese Muslims or migrant Muslims, whose ancestors migrated from erstwhile Bengal in British India, occupied a single piece of land by forcibly dislodging others.
The survey team found that out of 517 families surveyed, 21 families purchased their land in Dholpur before 1970. Between 1971 and 1980, 40 families purchased land from Hindus as well as Assamese Muslims residing in the vicinity. The report said though the sellers had never been to Dholpur, they claimed that their ancestors were occupants of the land, and thus they transferred the ownership of the land by signing sale deeds on stamp papers.
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