An eviction drive resumed at the Lutumari Reserved Forest in Assam’s Nagaon district on October 18, with around 600 families occupying 314 hectares of forest land facing eviction across several locations. The operation marks the latest phase in the administration’s ongoing push to clear encroachments from protected forest land in the region.
The drive is being carried out under the Kampur Regional Forest Division, with the Forest Department and the district administration completing preparations early in the morning before the operation began. A large contingent of police personnel has been deployed to oversee the eviction and maintain law and order as officials move through the affected areas.
The eviction operation covers Longjap Padumoni, Matikhola, Kheroni, Sankhola and Kandapara, where families living within the boundaries of the reserved forest are being targeted. Officials are dismantling settlements spread across these locations as part of a coordinated effort between the forest authorities and the civil administration.
The latest drive comes just days after a similar eviction operation was conducted on Saturday, during which 336 families were evicted from the Barpani forest area under the same regional forest division. The back-to-back operations indicate an accelerated timeline for the state’s encroachment-clearance campaign in Nagaon district.
The Lutumari forest area has previously witnessed large-scale eviction operations. On November 29, 2025, around 1,700 families living in Bederipar, Jadupur, Amdubi and Longjap Kheroni were subjected to an eviction drive under the Lutumari forest range. That operation, one of the biggest in the area in recent memory, displaced a significant number of households and set the stage for the renewed action now under way.
The ongoing operation forms part of the administration’s broader efforts to reclaim reserved forest land from encroachment across Assam. Authorities have consistently maintained that clearing such encroachments is essential for forest conservation and the restoration of protected areas, even as repeated drives in Nagaon district have resulted in the displacement of thousands of families over the past year. With the current phase targeting roughly 600 families across 314 hectares, the cumulative scale of evictions in and around the Lutumari Reserved Forest continues to grow, making the area one of the focal points of the state’s forest land reclamation campaign.
