Following violent clashes that resulted in the death of 2 and the injury of at least 67 people in the West Karbi Anglong district in Assam, Indian army has been deployed to restore peace in the region.
The unrest escalated after protests over the eviction of alleged ‘illegal settlers’ turned violent on Monday. The protests had begun earlier this month as a peaceful hunger strike but intensified following disagreements over land and settlement rights.
Taking stock of the situation on Wednesday, DGP Director General of PoliceHarmeet Singh said that Army officials have reached the distressed site to monitor the area. “The situation is totally under control now. The police are investigating the violence that happened over the last two days, he added.
Following reports of grand arson and violent clashes, the Assam government had suspended internet and mobile data services in the state’s Karbi Anglong district that led to the collapse of the district’s central marketplace.
As per media reports, the protests turned hostile on Monday, after agitators were removed from the site in the early hours of December 22 by the state police.
According to a report by Indian Express, this led the youth to apprehend that they are being arrested and deteriorated the situation. Police later clarified that they had removed the protestors from the site to get them medically examined at a nearby hospital.
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Burning marketplace, collapsing houses
Recalling the horror of the previous day, Mahima on Wednesday told the Indian Express about the depressing ordeal that the protest had put her family through.
“There were so many police people stationed here after what happened on Monday, but there was no point to any of it. Everything happened right in front of them. Our house was burned, and we jumped into the river to save ourselves. We spent the night watching everything from the other side of the river. This morning, we found that nothing had been spared. Our house, our motorbike, our two shops in the market have all gone to flames,” she said.
“While people were rushing away from their homes amid the arson, Suraj Dey, who was disabled, was unable to. My uncle went to try and help him, but the roof had already collapsed,” she added.
The violent clashes claimed the lives of two citizens namely Suraj Dey, a Bengali resident of the market who died when his house was set on fire, and Athik Timung, who was allegedly in a Karbi mob that clashed with the police.
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Reason behind the protest
The main site of clashes and disruption in the protest so far has been the Kheroni daily market which is divided by the Kopili River into two separate parts. The river has become a crucial marker of the long-simmering tensions in the area between the Karbi population and the non-Karbi settlers residing in the district who live in the opposing parts of the market over issues of residence and land classification.
Karbi bodies demand that settlers, who they allege have illegally encroached on reserved VGR (Village Grazing Reserve) and PGR (Professional Grazing Reserve) land, be evicted. The non-Karbi settlers constitute primarily of a Bihari population, as well as Bengali-Hindus and Nepalis.
This demand had gathered steam nearly two years ago, after a group of non-kharbi residents submitted a memorandum to President Droupadi Murmu in January 2024 seeking legalisation of settlers in West Karbi Anglong who had been there before 2011.
The protests in 2024 took a tense turn when some Karbi youths were injured in a fight with Bihari residents in Kheroni Chariali, “on the other side of the river.” The tensions resulted in the KAAC Chief Executive Member and BJP leader Tuliram Ronghang announcing a decision to evict over 2,000 families of “illegal encroachers.”
Following last year’s protest, non Karbi families filed a case before the high court and received an interim stay on the eviction. While the KAAC is yet to present its stand in court. The government has cited these ongoing cases as the reason that evictions have not taken place so far.
Aftermath of the protest
Litsong Rongpha, a Kharbi resident who had become the face of the hunger strike told the Indian Express while distancing himself and the others from the violence that the unease in the area is not just over encroachment on PGR/VGR lands.
“This is supposed to be a protected sixth schedule area, but we are becoming minorities here because of continuous settling. Our main demand is the security of our land. Even though not all the families there have gotten a stay from the court, the government does not want to carry out evictions because it does not suit their Hindu-Muslim politics to take action against the population there,” Rongpha said.
“Because our demand has been neglected for so long, and these feelings have been continuing for a long time, when the police removed us from the site, people got inflamed with passion. We were also not able to stop them, and they went out of control,” he added.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, DGP Singh appealed to the people not to indulge in violence and asked community elders to make “misguided” youths understand that problems can be solved only through dialogue. |
