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Journalism of Courage
The mother of a 19-year-old killed when police opened fire during a violent clash between protesters and authorities in the aftermath of an eviction drive in Assam’s Goalpara district last month has written to the Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court, requesting an independent judicial probe into the incident.
On July 12, a massive eviction drive took place, in which the homes of around 1,080 families had been bulldozed to clear land in Goalpara’s Paikan Reserve Forest. While the eviction itself had been conducted without incident, a violent confrontation broke out on July 17 when authorities dug up one of the main access roads to the site, where many displaced families were continuing to live in makeshift arrangements, in an effort to cut it off.
Several people, including police and forest personnel, were injured, and when police opened fire at the protesters, 19-year-old Sakowar Ali was killed and two other men were injured.
In a letter delivered to the office of the Registrar General of the Gauhati High Court on Tuesday, Nachiran Bibi, Sakowar’s mother, called the firing “unprovoked, excessive and disproportionate” and requested a judicial probe. She wrote that when the confrontation between locals and the authorities broke out over cutting off the settlement’s access road, “My sons — Sakowar Ali and Noser Ali — also went there to see the incident out of curiosity. Immediately, the police officials used lathi charge and then started open firing at the crowd… As a result of the firing, my son, Sakowar Ali, age of around 19 years, sustained bullet injuries above his neck and died on the spot.”
Police and forest authorities have maintained that police opened fire after personnel on duty were attacked by locals.
However, the letter said, “That the firing was unprovoked, excessive, and disproportionate use of the arms by the police officials. That my son is a grocery vendor. He was with his brother at the site of the incident out of sheer curiosity. We have lost trust in the police authorities to conduct an impartial investigation. Therefore, I am requesting your lordships for an independent judicial probe into the police firing.”
A judicial commission had been set up in 2021 through a government notification after an eviction drive in Darrang district, in which two civilians were killed and many others were injured. The commission submitted its report last year, finding the eviction “justified” but conducted at short notice, and recommended that police exercise restraint.
Rofiqul Islam, who is Sakowar’s uncle, said that since the eviction, the families comprising the deceased’s parents and elder brother have been shuttling between the marital homes of two of his sisters in Goalpara district.
“What the family hopes for the most is some kind of resettlement somewhere, which can help them to pick up their lives again. The family sells grocery items in weekly markets in nearby Meghalaya, and Sakowar managed most of the work,” he said.
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