On 26th August 2005, at 5:30, more than a thousand police personnel arrived at the previous Sugar Mill Complex while students were preparing to go to school and others were engaged in domestic chores. Seeing the unusual scene an elder resident of the area enquired about the situation. A highly respectable government official informed that the two houses illegally constructed a few months back, just in front of the previous office building will be demolished.
All of a sudden the police force swept over the residential houses cutting down the posts, breaking the walls and destroying the household items. It was so called to be an eviction of illegal occupants. However, no prior notices were served to the victims who were peacefully residing there for more than thirty years. Only two government quarter occupants were asked to vacate and they were seeking for alternative place. Women and children were forced out of the houses without allowing them to carry even school uniforms for the students and cooking utensils for the mothers, whilst men folk were pleading the authority and the police for mercy. A senior citizen requested a week be given to them to move out, or at least two days, but to no avail. The officer in command gave five minutes or else face consequences. That senior citizen swallowed the insult with tears looking at the helpless people in panic.
The forces were in a frenzied mood. Any police personnel who were a bit lenient just to break down the posts and the walls but not destroy the household goods nor push down the roof were meted out with spot punishment and harsher command. A young man who was taking photo of the scene was beaten severely and his camera was snatched and destroyed on the spot. One cannot believe why a thousand personnels were required to down dozens of houses and carry on the inhuman job on a war footing to leave a residential area deserted within few hours with fallen houses and destroyed articles.
Some cried the whole day under scorching sun. Many cooked and slept on the open fields. Some students stopped going to schools because their books and records were all destroyed.
Now the question arises:
1. Why should those few be made victims when hundreds of former employees of the then sugar Mill Company have occupied a vast area once belonging to the company?
2. If government needs that particular area why not provide an alternative place?
3. Why prior information was not served to the occupants to move out?
4. Why at least two days was not given to them as pleaded?
5. Why the cry of the children and women were not considered when they begged for mercy to leave the roof of their broken houses standing for that day at least?
6. Is it not a human problem for the jobless former company employees to be refugees?
7. When the occupants were residing for more than thirty years in a place allotted by the Village Council/Community with residential permit. Can they be considered as illegal occupants? Can the inhuman eviction of the innocent occupants be justified?
Without any prejudice, such thoughtless actions of the government need attention of all the right thinking citizens calling for humanitarian assistance for the displaced victims from individuals, NGOs and Welfare Organizations.
On behalf of the victims,
Toshi Ao,
Deo Krome
