Assam govt removes encroachment around Srimant Sankardev's birthplace
Batadraba Than, is the birthplace of Srimant Sankardev in the Nagaon district of Assam.
Srimant Sankardev, a 15-16th Century Vaishnava Saint is widely revered and worshipped in Assam. He had established the ‘Satras’ (Religious Centers) in Assam along with spreading Vaishnavism in the state. His teachings proved instrumental in eliminating the differences among the people and injecting in them the feeling of oneness.
Of late, however, this place regarded as ‘Holy’ was being encroached upon by thousands of illegal settlers who had sneaked into Assam from the neighboring Bangladesh borders and made it difficult for the Hindus to visit and pay obeisance to the revered saint.
The Assam government under the strong leadership of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has decided to remove this encroachment and launched a massive eviction drive on Monday. The district administration and the police administration carried out this eviction drive against illegal encroachment of government land here at the greater Batadrova Mouza under the Dhing revenue circle in the district.
The eviction operation was almost peaceful and went as per the schedule and cleared the area of several hundred bighas encroached by some people of a particular community, sources informed.
This is the first such drive after the Commission for Review and Assessment of the Problems of Satra Lands in Assam (CRAPSLA) submitted its report earlier this month on encroachment in Satras i.e. Vaishnaivite Monasteries founded by Srimanta Sankardev across the state. The commission was set up last year.
Nagaon Deputy Commissioner Narendra Kr Shah said that more than 300 families had illegally encroached upon and occupied the government land and constructed houses there. They were issued notices to vacate the land. Some of them obeyed the notice but some 75 families were not willing to vacate and they were also evicted from the land.
In view of the massive security deployment, the illegal settlers have started dismantling their settlements and left the area. According to the sources, these people have encroached upon around 1200 bighas of land in and around the Batadraba Than.
"The eviction drive started around 6 am on Monday and continued without any opposition or violence from the residents. Considering the area that needs to be cleared, the entire operation could take three to four days to complete, a senior police officer in Assam's Nagaon district said.
Devananda Deva Goswami, Satradhikar (Head) of the Batadraba Than said that out of the total 135 bighas (45 acres) was under encroachment since 1986-87. When the BJP Government came to power for the first time in 2016, they removed the encroachments and encroachers.
"But while the land of the Than is free of encroachment, there was rampant encroachment on nearly 900 bighas of the government land on our periphery. We are happy that action has been taken to remove encroachers. We want all illegal structures including religious ones to be removed from the area", he added.
In its report, the CRAPSLA said that out of the 33,265 bighas of land under possession of 'Satras', 7504 bighas of land is under encroachment. The highest area under encroachment was found in the Barpeta district where 5545 bighas of land were found encroached by illegal settlers.
According to government figures presented in the state assembly in September, a total of 4449 families have been evicted for allegedly encroaching on government land since May 2021 when the BJP came to power for the second time in Assam.
According to the government figures, 2153 families were evicted in the Darrang district followed by 805 in the Lumding reserve forest in the Hojai district and 404 families from the government land in the Dhubri district.
Following the eviction, at Dholpur the state government launched the Garukhuti Project, an ambitious venture to free land from encroachers and start agricultural and other allied activities in the area by engaging indigenous local youths.