Assam's government has evicted about 1,000 families from forest land in three districts, with the largest operation carried out in Nagaon over the weekend. Residents say the drive also demolished more than 10 mosques and left families who had lived in the area for generations without shelter.

The evictions took place on Saturday and Sunday in Nagaon, Hojai and Golaghat, according to the state administration. Prothom Alo reported that more than 638 hectares of protected forest land were cleared in a week. The biggest single operation was in the Lutumari reserved forest in Nagaon on Sunday, where about 314 hectares were cleared and around 550 families were affected, the newspaper said.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma described the operation as the "Rudra Roop", or fierce form, of his administration, according to Prothom Alo. He said the land had been illegally occupied and that the government was working to secure Assam's interests.

Forest officials gave a different emphasis. They told Prothom Alo that residents had been asked by loudspeaker announcements in August to leave, that about 90 per cent of the people described as encroachers left voluntarily before the drive began, and that the operation followed court orders.

The families who remained describe a different history. Abdul Noor, 44, who lost his home on Sunday, told Scroll that the government resettled the community in 1974. He said his landless forebears came from nearby Juria town and that 300 families received four bighas each, and that many of them worked as labourers for the forest department. Noor said residents had petitioned the Gauhati High Court against the eviction but received no relief. He added that more than 10 mosques, some more than 50 years old, were also demolished.

A student group, the All Assam Minorities Students' Union, says the drive targeted one community. Its president said many of the families removed from the Lutumari forest had been temporarily resettled there by the government in 1973, and that notices had not yet been served on residents of other faiths in the same area. The group also says more than 1,000 homes and several mosques were destroyed. These claims have not been independently verified.

The numbers remain disputed. Officials put the number of evicted families at about 1,000. The Business Standard, citing Scroll and figures from the state revenue and disaster management department and district authorities, reported that 547 families were removed on the first day across the three districts — 336 in Nagaon, 152 in Hojai and 59 in Golaghat — and that more than 600 families were removed in Lutumari the next day, putting the two-day total above 1,100.

The background is a long dispute over how the settlements began. The All India Union of Forest Working People wrote to the state in June asking it to halt the eviction of four villages in the Lutumari Longjap reserve. The group argued that the villages were established under the taungya system, a colonial-era arrangement in which forest communities grew food crops among commercially valuable trees while working for the forest department, and that residents should not be treated as ordinary encroachers.

The state government says the settlements stood on protected forest land. The Business Standard, citing Scroll and official figures, reported that about 19,000 families, most of them Muslim, have been evicted from government land during the BJP's 10 years in power in Assam.

Several questions remain unanswered. The government has not published a full list of the families displaced, a rehabilitation plan or details of compensation. It has not confirmed the number of mosques demolished, and no independent assessment of the damage has been released. It is also unclear where the families will go, or whether fresh legal challenges will delay further drives.

The operation has drawn attention in Bangladesh, where many people share a language and family ties with the affected communities. No public statement from the Bangladesh government on this week's drive was available at the time of publication.

What happens next will depend on the courts and on the state's appetite for more drives. The Gauhati High Court has intervened in earlier eviction cases, sometimes ordering status quo and sometimes allowing the state to proceed. Rights groups say they will keep challenging the notices. The immediate test is whether the families left in the Lutumari reserve receive shelter, documents and a clear legal answer before the next operation begins.