Guwahati, June 22: An hour-long pitched battle between security personnel and eviction drive protesters in front of the state secretariat at Dispur today left three people dead, including a nine-year-old boy, over 40 injured and several police and private vehicles damaged.

Senior superintendent of police (city) Dipak Choudhury, was among those injured after being attacked by the protesters.

Hundreds of men, women and children came down from their homes in the hills in the morning and squatted on the road in front of the state secretariat gate near Super Market, protesting against the eviction drive and demanding land pattas.

The protest was organised under the banner of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samity (KMSS) and Brihattar Guwahati Mati Patta Dabi Samiti and was led by KMSS leader Akhil Gogoi.

The protesters said the recent drive by state forest department to evict people from the city’s hills was illegal under the Forest Dwellers Act, 2006.

“The recent eviction drive on the hills is illegal under the Forest Dwellers Act, 2006. Under the Act, any person living in forests since 2005 cannot be evicted. But the Assam forest department is illegally evicting the indigenous people. Those living on the city hills are indigenous people. So we have launched a protest and will continue it till our demands are met,” Akhil Gogoi said in the aftermath of the incident.

The protesters shouted slogans for about three hours. On getting no response from the government, they tried to storm the secretariat around 1pm, only to be blocked by a police barricade.

A few minutes later, the protesters marched towards the main gate of the secretariat on GS Road.

When they were stopped and lathi-charged, they started pelting stones at the security personnel.

In retaliation, the police opened fire, first in the air and then at the protesters.

Four protesters received bullet injuries and were rushed to hospitals.

Three of them, including nine-year-old Rubul Ali, later succumbed to their injuries. Rubul, son of Yusuf Ali of Lalmati area where the forest department carried out eviction on June 11, died after being rushed to the Dispur branch of GNRC Hospital.

GNRC public relations officer Mrinal Ali Hazarika said the cause of Rubul’s death was yet to be ascertained.

The other victims were identified as Siva Kumar Sarma, 42, who died at Down Town Hospital, and Biren Kalita, 56, who died at Gauhati Medical College and Hospital.

At least 24 injured, including policemen, were admitted at the GMCH, 12 at Down Town Hospital and nine at GNRC Hospitals.

Police personnel were found struggling to control the mob, which went on a rampage and burnt down a police van and a Gypsy and damaged several private vehicles on GS Road. The mob also set three buses on fire.

Senior police officers, including inspector-general of police (law and order), Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, inspector-general of police (central and western range), Pallab Bhattacharya and Kamrup (metro) deputy commissioner J. Balaji rushed to the spot around 2.30pm.

Balaji and Mahanta urged Akhil Gogoi to withdraw the protest but he insisted that chief minister Tarun Gogoi and chief secretary N.K. Das should talk to the protesters.

The protesters finally dispersed in the evening after being assured that chief secretary N.K. Das would discuss their demands with them on June 28. Prior to that, several rounds of discussions were held between Akhil Gogoi and lower Assam commissioner H.K. Sharma.

“The chief secretary will hold a meeting with their representatives on June 28 and a group of ministers (GoM) will be constituted to look into their demands,” Sharma said.

He assured the protesters that an inquiry would be conducted into today’s incident within 10 days.

The protesters demanded that the GoM should comprise forest minister Rockybul Hussain, revenue minister Prithibi Majhi and tribal welfare minister Rajib Lochan Pegu but the government did not make any commitment on this.

Akhil Gogoi blamed the police and the administration for the incident.

“We were only demanding that we submit our memorandum to either the principal secretary or the deputy commissioner, but none of them came to collect the memorandum and police started the lathicharge to disperse the protesters, which worsened the situation,” he said.

Denying his claim, Balaji said they were granted permission to take out the rally on the condition that a magistrate on duty would accept their memorandum on behalf of the government.

In the meantime, several organisations have condemned the incident.

The AASU, while condemning police firing and lathicharge on protesters at Dispur today, also condemned the mob violence and torching of vehicles. The AJYCP also condemned the incident, saying, “We have also been demanding allocation of land pattas to the people residing on the hills. We condemn police firing on the protesters. But at the same time, we condemn the unruly behaviour of the protesters. There must be a third party hand in creating the unruly behaviour,” said the student boy’s leader, Biraj Talukdar.

Today’s violence came 10 days after the Gorchuk incident when people blocked National Highway 37 for three hours and prevented forest department personnel from evicting settlers from the Fatasil reserve forest.

The forest department had launched the eviction drive on city hills on June 10.