STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: AIUDF president Badruddin Ajmal has requested the President of India to direct the Assam Government to stop eviction in the winter season and to provide land and financial help to the landless and homeless families without any discrimination before eviction drives.
Ajmal wrote in his letter to the President of India, "I would like to bring to your notice that the Assam Government is carrying out eviction drives in the state even in this chilly winter period, rendering thousands of poor people homeless and causing trouble to them. This inhuman action must be stopped immediately, at least in this shivering cold season on humanity grounds and from the perspective of human rights. But the Government of Assam is carrying out an eviction drive without making any rehabilitation plan and providing alternative places to the affected families, consequently forcing them to live under the open sky. People are evicted from places where they have been living for decades. The most objectionable point is that the eviction drive is initiated in a selective and discriminatory manner targeting one community."
Ajmal said, "I, on behalf of my party AIUDF, would like to make it clear that we are not in favour of illegal encroachment on government land. We do not have any objection if illegal encroachers are evicted from the government land, whoever they are. But it is an undeniable fact that Assam is a state where flood and erosion make thousands of people homeless and landless every year. They take shelter in the government land because they do not have any other option. So, poor affected families, who do not have any other place to live, must be rehabilitated after proper inquiry without discrimination based on caste, creed and religion. It is the government's responsibility to provide a home to the homeless and land to landless people of the state".
Also Watch: