Orang invaders chased away

Thousands of illegal migrants from chaporis try to build homes in national park

Guwahati, May 7: Several thousand suspected illegal migrants waded through Dhansiri river carrying house-building materials and swamped Orang National Park in Darrang yesterday before being chased away by army and forest guards on elephant backs, who were even forced to fire in the air.

The invaders, who came from various chaporis (sand bars), entered through the park’s southern border and built houses with materials they had brought along.

“We dismantled about 50 houses made of bamboo, constructed during the course of the day,” the divisional forest officer of the national park, Sushil Daila, said over phone.

He said the raiders came with their cattle and household articles and certainly had plans to stay.

“We had to use elephants to chase these people away,” he said.

The invaders chose Hazarbigha, located at the confluence of the Brahmaputra and the Dhansiri, on the boundary of the smallest national park in the state, to build their homes.

“A few houses were built inside the core area of the park,” the Orang official said.

The unprecedented incident triggered an alarm in the state forest department, raising fears that there would be more such attempts in the days to come. Apart from beefing up security along the Orang boundary, the forest department has sounded an alert at Kaziranga National Park.

There are allegations of illegal migrants, mostly from Bangladesh, encroaching government land near Kaziranga as well.

A patrol party of forest guards first spotted the invasion at Orang yesterday afternoon.

“They immediately informed us about the development as the few forest guards were no force in front of the massive group of invaders, armed with sharp weapons,” Daila said.

The Orang authorities immediately informed the army and around 4pm an eviction drive was launched.

Forest guards on elephants began breaking down houses while army personnel followed on their heels.

“The invaders began attacking our men, forcing the army personnel to fire several rounds in the air,” the official said.

They were finally evicted after a three-hour drive.

“They crossed the river and went back to the chaporis from where they came,” Daila said.

Sources in the forest department said the setters in the char areas along the Brahmaputra near the national parks, especially the Kaziranga and Orang National Parks, were involved in rhino poaching and most of these settlers are Bangladeshi migrants.

During a raid conducted by security personnel at a few villages located on the fringe areas of Orang a couple of months back, weapons and traps used in poaching were recovered along with body parts of animals.

Four persons were arrested in this connection.

Interestingly, all the arrested persons — Md Abdul Rashid, Gulam Osmani, Md Ghiyasuddin and Md Ayub Ali — are suspected Bangladeshi nationals.

The verification process is under way, a police source said.

Rashid, a renowned poacher, had surrendered earlier but given the fact that a .303 rifle was recovered from his possession, he may still be involved in poaching.

A police source said the numerous chaporis (sandbars) located along the Brahmaptra have turned into breeding grounds for poachers.

“The nationalities of a large number of people who have settled in these chaporis are suspect. We cannot confirm whether these people are illegal migrants but if we conduct a proper survey, many would turn out to be illegal migrants, who have crossed over the international border only recently,” a police official in Darrang district said.

Link - http://www.telegraphindia.com/110050...y_12423467.jsp

Interesting article!
Squatting on Indian territory and migrating over illegally has been a regular practice along the Indo Bangladesh border.

Most of the immigrants have no jobs, no ID and as such are at the mercy of the local populace - so a rising trend has been they form their colonies around villages/ open forest land or move into cities to work as domestic help or menial labor, and most often they get exploited as well.

There is a huge number of these immigrants even in Orissa working mostly as domestic helps in towns and surprisingly across the Bhitarakanika belt along the route to the forest entry point " Dangamal", he squatters have managed to find land and most of the hamlets and villages belong to the illegal immigrants and squatters. Now with saline land and no jobs and no ID - human recourse is to fallback to living off the land - which may lead to Poaching, hunting etc., which is a cause of concern

Sharing an article from Assam Tribune. It is unfortunate to hear that Politicians are involved. Such is the degeneration of the quality of politicians and politics these days.

Sabyasachi

Politicians behind Orang encroachment
Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, May 8 – Bizarre facts have come to light that reveal how vested political interests have joined hands with illegal settlers and encouraged them to encroach on land, including sensitive Protected Areas that enjoy strict monitoring. The latest incident in which scores of people entered Orang National Park and built up shelters within a span of few hours has demonstrated how well-planned and motivated the entire operation was.
It was timely action by forest department personnel, assisted by the police and the army that finally evicted the encroachers who were armed and willing to confront the government personnel on May 6.

Nearly 1,000 people, natives of river islands, had entered the South-western part of the national park, which is the only major refuge of the Indian rhino north of the Brahmaputra. The status of their citizenship, according to sources, was very doubtful.

Sources, on condition of anonymity, told The Assam Tribune that even while they were being pushed out of the national park, the offenders were issuing threats and made reference to a particular political leader of the Congress party.

“They were quite open about their intentions…and mentioned the name of the leader, who they said was supporting their cause,” said a source present when the confrontation had taken place.

This newspaper was also informed that there was a sinister modus operandi to the effort to grab vast tracts of land. The encroachers had lined up women and children on the front when they faced forest personnel and government officials, indicating that they were trained for such a situation beforehand. Such a move made their eviction

particularly difficult.

Although the forest department has stuck to its position, and earned kudos from various quarters, its officials believe that a similar situation might recur in the near future. Already some political leaders have started calling forest officials to show restraint when it comes to dealing with illegal settlers of doubtful citizenship.

According to a senior forest department official, the people who made the abortive bid certainly enjoyed political patronage from high levels. “Otherwise, how would anyone dare to enter a highly protected area and expect to settle permanently?” he asked and added that it was time that the Government realised its responsibility in managing precious natural landscapes.

Meanwhile, monitoring inside the park has been heightened with additional manpower being pressed into service as the authorities do not want a repeat of the ugly episode.

The source article can be found here:
http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/...d=may0910/at07

Read an update on the situtaion, so sharing. This seems to be a serious situation.

Suspected Bangladeshis attack ONP yet again

MANGALDAI, May 17: Forest staff, accompanied by police and security personnel, today evicted over 400 suspected Bangladeshis from the Orang National Park (ONP). The operation was not a hassle-free affair as the security personnel had resorted to firing to disperse the defiant encroachers, seven of whom sustained injuries. Two of the seven injured — Akkel Ali and Nurul Islam — have been admitted to Mangaldai Hospital.

This development came close on the heels of the police and security personnel evicting a large number of suspected Bangladeshis from the national park in the first week of May.

According to sources, on May 16, some ONP staff were prevented by some people from erecting posts in the boundary of the park for construction of fence. The ONP staff continued their job, and they noticed this morning that over 400 suspected Bangladeshis, including women, children, cattle and other livestock, crossed the Brahmaputra from its south bank on country-made engine boats (bhutbhutis) and started to encroach ONP land at Hazarbigha on the southern part of the park by erecting about 20 thatched houses. Immediately on receipt of the information, the park authority, together with policemen, forest battalion jawans, home guards and a local magistrate rushed to the spot and started the eviction drive. This time too, the encroachers went berserk and attacked the security personnel, who were compelled to fire several rounds in the air and then resorted to lathi-charge and tear gas shelling. The security personnel dismantled the dwelling houses and drove the encroachers away. The security personnel apprehended two leaders of the encroachers — Abdul Rahman Biswas (29) of Ward Number 2 of Mangaldai town and Jakir Hussain Robbani (26) of Dalgaon area in Darrang district.

Link - http://www.sentinelassam.com/mainnew...10-05-18&ppr=1