Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said that the extremist Islamist group Popular Front of India (PFI) was involved in Thursday’s violence during an eviction drive at Dholpur area in Assam’s Darrang district. Nine police personnel injured after violence broke out in Sipajhar of Darrang district in Assam during an anti-encroachment drive which was conducted by the administration.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said “State govt has an intelligence report that certain people collected Rs 28 lakhs during last 3 months, saying that there’ll be no eviction. When they couldn’t resist eviction, they mobilised public & created havoc on that day. We have the names of 6 persons. Prior to the day of incident, PFI visited the site in the name of carrying food items to evicted families. Various evidence are now emerging, implicating certain people, including a lecturer”. He went on to further add “Evictions were done as per their consent. I had told them about evictions and that they should ensure no resistance, which they promised. I explained same thing to Congress. They agreed with me & appreciated the decision. They created mayhem the next day”.

Thousands of illegal migrants attacked police and govt officials with sharp weapons while they were carrying an eviction drive against Illegal Encroachment of Govt land. At least 10000 Illegal migrants from neighbouring countries, occupying about 30000 acres of land along with an ancient temple in Assam’s Darrang district were evicted as part of the state Govt drive against “illegal encroachments” on Monday, while 9 policemen were injured in the attack by the mob of illegal encroachers, 2 attackers were killed in retaliatory police firing. The eviction drive was conducted by the government of Himanta Biswa Sarma which is known to be a firebrand Hindutva leader. The land was illegally occupied by the Bengali speaking Muslims. This eviction drive was of among one of the many promises made by the BJP government to the people of Assam.

The administration says that the muslims who were illegally occupying the land were already served the notice many times but they did not move and this was the reason eviction drive has to be carried out.The muslims of the area welcomed the forces with stones, machetes and pointed bamboo sticks due to which many security forces were injured. Then the security forces used tear gas shells in order to disperse the crowd.As the mob could not be dispersed even by using tear gas shells, and several policemen were injured in the attack, the police opened fire on the attackers. According to SP Sushanta Biswa Sarma, the condition of one policeman is critical.

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