More than 4,000 people were displaced on Sunday, November 1, 2026, after authorities in Assam’s Dhubri district demolished the homes of over 640 Bengali Muslim families in an eviction drive targeting government land.
The operation took place on approximately 650 bighas (around 215 acres) of government-owned khas land in Alamganj Part-IX (also referred to as Alomganj Ninth Block or Part-9) village under the Gauripur revenue circle.
Officials said eviction notices had earlier been served covering about 800 bighas involving several hundred families. The remaining roughly 150 bighas were left untouched because of pending court cases, with the next hearing scheduled for November 13.
Dhubri District Commissioner Dibakar Nath said the drive followed administrative processes including hearings and notices, with residents given time to vacate.
He stated that nearly 80 percent of residents had already dismantled their homes and left with their belongings before heavy machinery arrived.
Around 50–60 excavators and bulldozers, supported by a large police and civil administration contingent, were deployed. Officials described the operation as peaceful, with no major resistance reported.
Nath indicated the cleared land would be handed over to the industrial department, which has been seeking space for an industrial park for the past two years, though final decisions rest with the state government.
He claimed many residents had settled on the land in phases over the last five to ten years and that most had land elsewhere.
Residents strongly contested the official narrative. Many said their families had lived in the area for decades, some since the 1960s, after being displaced by erosion and flooding from the Brahmaputra River.
Ali Chand Fakir, an 80-year-old resident, told reporters he had lived there since 1962 after moving from neighbouring Goalpara district.
He said he dismantled parts of his house beforehand, but bulldozers later flattened the remaining structures, trees, and toilets.
Several residents pointed to touzi receipts showing land revenue payments to the government up to 2016. Others said they had purchased plots from private intermediaries or “land brokers,” only later learning the land was government-owned.
Videos and reports from the site showed emotional scenes: residents praying at a mosque, people breaking down near a shrine, and at least one woman fainting as her house was demolished.
Some families have taken temporary shelter with relatives, under tarpaulins along roadsides, or in low-lying char areas, saying they have no alternative land.
Local accounts also mentioned the demolition of community structures, including mosques and graveyards.
This drive forms part of a sustained series of eviction operations by the Himanta Biswa Sarma-led BJP government in Assam.
Roughly two weeks earlier, more than 1,100 mostly Bengali Muslim families were evicted from forest land across Nagaon, Hojai, and Golaghat districts. In the ten years of BJP rule, data compiled from state revenue and district sources indicate around 19,000 families—predominantly Muslim—have been removed from government land.
Earlier operations in Dhubri itself, including one in 2025 that cleared land later allocated for an Adani power project, had already displaced thousands.
Officials maintain the drives reclaim encroached government and forest land for public and developmental purposes and follow due process.
Affected communities and rights groups argue that many of those displaced are long-term settlers, often themselves victims of river erosion, and that the operations disproportionately target Bengali-speaking Muslims (locally called Miyas), with inadequate rehabilitation.
The displaced families now await the November 13 court hearing and any further government decisions on alternative accommodation or the use of the cleared land.
