Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday, November 4, said he won’t stop until every inch of “our land” is “reclaimed”, responding to videos of mass eviction drives that displaced thousands of families from a Muslim-dominant area.
More than 4,500 people from about 550 families watched their houses being demolished on November 1, after multiple bulldozers arrived at the Alamganj Part IX locality. The district administration said the houses, mosques, and other establishments in the area were illegally constructed on government land.
The victims, all Bengali-speaking Muslims, raised slogans against the civic action as the administration tore down their houses. Videos of the incident were widely circulated on social media, with Al Jazeera‘s video about the demolitions reaching the CM’s notice.
Residents were given 15 days to vacate the premises if they could not furnish any document proving they had a right to live on the land, Al Jazeera reported in the video. While 4,000 people were displaced, 160 families remained in the area waiting for an update on the legal case.
Responding to the post on X, Himanta Biswa Sarma said, “More to come. We will not stop till every inch of our land is reclaimed.”
His brazen use of phrases such as “our land” and “more to come” has come across as aggressive rhetoric and warnings directed against the Bengali-speaking Muslim community that Sarma has repeatedly targeted since assuming office as the CM.
Over 20,387 families displaced since 2021
According to a March 2026 New Humanitarian investigation, between May 2021 and 2026, Assam carried out at least 33 documented eviction operations, displacing 20,387 families and over one lakh people. Other estimates put the number of demolished establishments at over 22,000.
While the government maintains these are anti-encroachment drives, Sarma frames it as an issue of illegal immigration from Bangladesh.
On Monday, following the eviction drive in Dhubri, CM Sarma took to X, sharing his “accomplishment.”
“Encroachers in Dhubri – It’s done bro!” his post read. “I’ve told you so many times that Assam’s land is for its people, not for encroachers. But some people probably don’t want to understand my words. For them, we present JCBs (bulldozers).”
He added that bulldozers are a “guaranteed formula” for removing “encroachers”.
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