Three children of No 1 and No 3 Dholpur villages in Darrang district of Assam, where the state government carried out forceful evictions of Muslim families on September 20 and 23, died following the ordeal.
Mahibul Hoque | TwoCircles.net
ASSAM – Following the eviction drive carried out by the Assam government in Dholpur villages in Darrang district in September, three children have died from the villages “due to inaccessibility of proper medical care as a consequence of the eviction,” their families said.
Three children of No 1 and No 3 Dholpur villages in Darrang district of Assam, where the state government carried out forceful evictions of Muslim families on September 20 and 23, died following the ordeal.
The three dead children include a one-day-old infant, a four-month-old and a one-year-old.
26-year-old Anowar Hussain and his wife Fatema Khatun were expecting their second child when the couple received the ultimatum to remove their belongings or else face eviction on September 20. Anowar was relentlessly trying to get whatever he could take away before the police moved a bulldozer over his house. As the only man in the family, he was struggling to shift his tin-walled house to the plot of land identified for the temporary settlement of the evicted families.
“Seeing that I am struggling, my wife could not keep herself from helping me in taking the heavy tin walls away,” Anowar said, expressing sorrow that the exertion cost the life of his unborn child later.
Fatema was nine months pregnant when the eviction drive by the Assam government was carried out. “After the eviction day, she started feeling pain and we rushed to the district civil hospital in Mangaldai. But from there, the doctors immediately referred us to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital,” Anowar told TwoCircle.net.
Doctors at the medical college told the couple that their child was healthy and did not require special treatment. On September 27, Fatema gave birth to the child but the newborn baby died soon after.
An inconsolable Fatema said, “I wished for a second child and we would have looked after the two children. I would have made sure that he was not illiterate so that he would know how to keep documents ready whenever the government asked.” Her reference to documents is a general phenomenon in Assam among the Miya community specifically as time and again the community members have to produce the documents before government officials to assert their land ownership, citizenship proof, or proof of residence.
For 35-year-old Rohim Ali and 25-year-old Mesiran Begum of the same village losing their 4-month-old son was the biggest pain inflicted upon the family by the “state government” though the family also lost their “home and livelihood”.
Rohim lamented that he and his children were forced to stay in the gusty cold wind and rain. “I did not manage to set up a shelter and we were all drenched in the rain. The cold wind made it worse,” he said.
After spending the night in rain, Rohim’s daughter, deceased Muslem Ali developed cold and fever and required medical treatment. The family was not able to get her any. “The situation at that time was so sensitive that I could not take her to the public health centre at Gorukhuti. Everyone was scared that the local Hindutva goons will beat us. So, I got her whatever medicine the local pharmacist gave,” Rohim said.
“Despite the fear, I even tried to take the child to the health centre but the RSS people on the way stopped me and sent me back”, Rohim added.
Gorukhuti state dispensary is located in the Hindu area and the road that leads to the health centre goes through the camp where police, local youths and BJP MLA Padma Hazarika was camping during the time.
Akkas Ali and Minuara Parvin of Dholpur No 1 were also robbed of their only girl child “because of government apathy and the eviction drive”. The family was also evicted on September 20 and had to endure the rain causing their 1-year-old daughter Akhi Aktara to fall sick.
“She had severe breathing problem and cough because of the cold. Though she was born healthy and was around 3 kgs when we last weighed her, the cold killed her,” Akkas said. He held the government responsible for his daughter’s death.
Echoing the sentiments of Rohim, Akkas said, “The road to Gorukhuti public health centre was blocked by the police and we were so scared that we could not gather any courage to take her to the hospital. Eventually, my daughter did not survive the cold.”
Infant Akhi died on October 16 due to respiratory complications.
The fear of ‘police torture’ and local goons, who the evicted people claim were “RSS people”, made accessibility to proper medical treatment for these evicted people fraught with risk. “This is what led to the death of the children,” he said.
Following the eviction drive, the Darrang district administration had sent one medical team to treat the injured persons on September 23. No other medical or any assistance was provided by the district administration after the eviction.
The district deputy commissioner had earlier said that the evicted families would receive aid on “humanitarian grounds”, a tag locals say was presenting them as non-citizens.
Mahibul Hoque is a SEED fellow with TwoCircles.net. He tweets at @H_Mahibul