Police kill Muslim youth during eviction protest in northeast India
Security forces used live bullets instead of tear gas as displaced Muslims protested road blockade and ongoing harassment in Assam
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — A 19-year-old Muslim youth was shot dead and several others were critically injured after Indian security forces opened fire on displaced families resisting eviction in the northeastern state of Assam on Thursday.
The victim, identified as Sakuwar Hussain, was killed when forest officials and armed personnel arrived in the Krishnai area of Goalpara district and attempted to cut off a makeshift settlement’s only access road. At least two others, Kasimuddin Ali (27) and Amir Hamza (38), were hospitalized with life-threatening bullet wounds. Several others sustained minor injuries, including two police personnel.
The incident occurred just days after state authorities had evicted over 1,000 Muslim families from nearby Ashudubi in the Paikan Reserve Forest. Forced out on July 12, the families had taken shelter in temporary tarpaulin camps in Vidyapara — with no alternate housing or relocation plan provided.
Locals said the protest turned violent when forest officials arrived with a bulldozer to dig a crater that would sever the road linking the camps to the main highway and market area. The road was the only route for the displaced to access food, healthcare, and scrap material from their demolished homes — items they were trying to sell to survive.
Student groups condemned the use of lethal force, accusing officials of firing live rounds instead of using non-lethal crowd control methods like tear gas or rubber bullets. “This was a deliberate act of brutality,” said a local student leader, adding that people were simply trying to collect the remains of their destroyed homes when they were surrounded and shot at.
Aziz Ahmed, a local leader from the Satra Mukti Sangram Samiti, called the shooting a “cold-blooded conspiracy” by forest authorities, accusing one officer of openly threatening to have people killed. “The protest was non-violent. These people had nowhere to go. The violence started only when they were pushed again and again,” he said.
Reports from nearby villages suggest that police also began detaining unrelated residents later in the day. One villager, speaking anonymously, said those who ventured outside were being picked up indiscriminately. “Even those of us living on registered land are afraid to leave our homes,” he said.
Assam’s far-right state government, led by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, has carried out a wave of demolitions targeting Muslims under the guise of clearing forest land. In just the past two months, over 3,500 families have been uprooted across four districts. Since taking office, Sarma has claimed to have “freed” 160 square kilometers of land — displacing more than 50,000 people in the process.
Rights groups say these evictions disproportionately target Bengali-origin Muslims and reflect an increasingly Islamophobic state policy in Assam, where land and identity politics have become flashpoints under BJP rule.
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