More than 1,400 Bengali-origin Muslim families were displaced in Assam’s Dhubri district after their homes were demolished in July 2025 to clear land for a power project that has since been allocated to Adani Power, the 24NewsHD TV channel reported on Wednesday
According to Scroll, the demolitions took place across several villages in the Chapar revenue circle on nearly 1,157 acres of government land. Dhubri District Magistrate Dibakar Nath told Scroll at the time that the land had been allotted to the Assam Power Distribution Company, which later allocated it to Adani Power for the project.
Residents told Scroll that nearly 10,000 Bengali-origin Muslims, many of whom had lived in the area for three or four decades, were displaced from Chirakuta I and II, Charuabakhra and Santoshpur villages. Some residents said their families had moved to the area after losing earlier homes to erosion caused by the Brahmaputra river.
The issue gained further attention after Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma laid the foundation stone for the Adani power project on the same land in September 2026. Scroll reported that the 3,200-megawatt thermal power project is being developed on land where the 1,400 families had previously lived.
Adani Power told India’s environment authorities that there were no habitations at the project site and therefore no rehabilitation or resettlement claims were involved. However, residents affected by the demolitions disputed this account, saying the site had been cleared through the eviction operation and that many families had not received adequate rehabilitation.
District authorities allocated land in Baizar Alga village for the rehabilitation of affected residents and set aside Rs50,000 as one-time assistance for moving belongings. Some displaced residents, however, said they were reluctant to move because the proposed rehabilitation site was in a low-lying river area that was vulnerable to flooding during the monsoon.
The Dhubri operation formed part of a wider series of eviction drives in Assam. According to data provided by the state revenue and disaster management department and reported by Scroll, more than 10,620 families, the majority of them Muslim, had been evicted from government land between 2016 and August 2024.
Scroll also reported that several eviction drives since 2016 had resulted in deaths during clashes or police firing. Its September 2026 report said at least eight Muslims had been shot dead during eviction operations since the BJP came to power in Assam in 2016.
The Assam government has maintained that the drives are aimed at removing encroachments from government and protected land. The demolitions and their impact on Bengali-origin Muslim communities have, however, faced criticism from affected residents and opposition voices, while some cases have been challenged in court.