From Home to Tin Shelters: Assam’s Evictions Leave Hundreds Struggling To Survi ...
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[*]Over 660 families were evicted in June 2025 from Hasila Beel, with authorities citing environmental protection, while residents lost homes, livelihoods, and access to basic services.
[*]Displaced families now live in temporary shelters with poor conditions, limited water access, disrupted education, and little to no government assistance despite court orders.
[*]Experts say the crisis reflects a broader political shift in Assam, where religious identity has overtaken linguistic identity, leading to the marginalisation and isolation of Miya Muslim communities.
Taslima Begum, 52, was known in her small Hasila Beel neighbourhood as an ASHA worker who checked on mothers and children. She also ran a modest grocery shop.
Her husband, a private school teacher, earned just enough to keep the household going. Their son works in a private hospital as an ultrasound technician, and their daughter is married. The family had lived for decades in a proper house in Goalpara’s Hasila Beel.
Then it was gone.
“They have destroyed all that we built,” Taslima says, her voice unsteady. The shop is gone. The house is gone.
Their house destroyed to rubble and they were evicted just after Eid-ul-Adha in June 2025. Now, Eid-ul-Fitr is here nearly nine months later, and they are struggling to rebuild. Along with hundreds of other families, they have moved about a kilometre away. They now live in a tin hut and run a small makeshift shop selling basic groceries. Her husband did not want to speak.
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Between 16 and 18 June, the district administration in Goalpara, Assam, removed at least 660 families from what it described as a government-notified wetland, affecting over 4,000 people. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarmacalled it a “lawful eviction drive” to clear nearly 495 acres of encroached land, framing it as a step towards protecting ecosystems.
Just days later, on 22 June 2025, the state cabinet approved a proposal to declare 245 hectares of Hasila Beel a Proposed Reserve Forest. During a visit on 24 June, the Chief Minister said parts of the area would be developed for eco-tourism.
“I work with the government,” says Taslima, “and now they have rendered us homeless.”
Everyone here belongs to what the state labels ‘Miya Muslims’, a term often used for Bengali-origin Muslims whose ancestors moved from what was known as East Pakistan, distinct from Assamese-origin communities.
Prof Abdul Kalam Azad, from Barpeta in Assam and an Assistant Professor of Public Health at OP Jindal Global University, says the present crisis is rooted in a long political shift. “What we are witnessing today did not begin recently,” he explains, noting that migration has long shaped Assam’s politics, often pushing minorities to the margins.
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In Assam, Citizenship, Land, Identity Collide Ahead Of Polls
BY Ashlin Mathew
Pages:
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