Bulldozed: The illegally constructed portions of the railway quarters being demolished on Tuesday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Feb. 26: The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) today carried out an eviction drive in its residential colony near Guwahati railway station amid strong protests.

The NFR eviction squad demolished a large number of illegal constructions adjoining the railway quarters in the presence of security personnel who had to use mild force to disperse the protesters.

The protesters, mostly railway employees, their family members and tenants, shouted slogans demanding a halt to the eviction drive. When some of them grew unruly and started throwing stones at the eviction squad, police and Railway Protection Force personnel resorted to caning.

The eviction was carried out under the supervision of railway officials and magistrates deputed by the Kamrup (metro) district administration.

“The eviction was carried out this morning to remove the unauthorised constructions in the railway colony. The drive was necessary as it had come to our notice that unlawful activities were carried out by persons illegally staying in these unauthorised structures,” the divisional railway manager of Lumding division, S.S. Narayanan, said.

The police and civil administration had requested the railway authorities to carry out the drive after it came to their notice that a section of railway employees had made illegal constructions in their quarters and sub-let it to suspicious persons, including Ulfa militants. A few weeks ago, the police had recovered arms and explosives from a railway quarter near Guwahati station, which was illegally sub-let to a Ulfa rebel, Champak Sharma. Several bomb blasts have also taken place in and around the railway colonies.

In many quarters, the occupants had even made permanent constructions and let it out to shops, PCOs and beauty parlours, among others.

The protesters said they were not opposed to the eviction but the way it was carried out.

“We asked them to give us 15 days’ time as matric and Higher Secondary examinations were on and demolition during this period would inconvenience the examinees. We would have had no objection if the drive was carried out after that period,” Manoj Kumar, a protester, said.

“The drive was carried out without giving us any notice. I had constructed a temporary structure to keep my car. If the authorities had served a notice, I would have pulled it down,” said D.K. Bhuyan, a railway employee.

Railway officials refuted the allegations, saying that all the official procedures had been adhered to.

The Railway Colony Unnayan Samity, an organisation formed by the residents, said they would move Gauhati High Court seeking a stay on the eviction.

NFR chief public relations officer T. Rabha said the exercise was intended to clean up the colony of unauthorised structures.

He said of the 1,100 quarters near the station, 800 had unauthorised attachments.

Narayanan said similar drives would be soon carried out in other railway colonies in the city as well.