National Citizen Party Convener Nahid Islam on Wednesday strongly condemned the recent demolition of more than 1,100 Bengali Muslim homes in India’s Assam by the authorities.

In a Facebook post, he also expressed deep concern over the move.

“The demolition drive also reportedly destroyed more than 10 mosques, some of which had stood for over 50 years,” he wrote.

He said that instead of ensuring adequate resettlement and rehabilitation, the authorities had left many families displaced and vulnerable, with some reportedly placed in detention centres.

“While the authorities have justified these actions as an effort to reclaim government and forest land from alleged ‘encroachers’, Indian media reports indicate that many affected families have deep-rooted ties to the region, having lived on these lands since long before India’s independence.”

He called the latest operation “part of a disturbing pattern of discrimination and persecution of Bengali Muslims in India”, fuelled by Hindutva-driven politics.

He said approximately 19,000 families had reportedly been displaced over the past decade.

Highlighting the years of crackdowns, forced push-ins and exclusion from voter lists faced by Bengali Muslims, he said, “These actions suggest that the current government is pursuing a targeted agenda against Muslim minorities and actively enforcing measures that threaten their rights and security.”

He also brought up the demolition of the historic Babri Masjid in 1992, “an event that remains an enduring symbol of religious intolerance and communal division”.

He said that under Hindutva fascism, India had categorically failed to protect its minority communities, including Muslims, Christians and Sikhs, as well as lower-caste Hindus.

Calling upon the international community to take immediate cognisance of the systematic persecution of Muslims by the Indian authorities, he said the Indian government must be held accountable for these serious human rights violations and infringements on religious freedom.

“It must uphold the principles of justice and equality for every Indian citizen, regardless of caste, religion or cultural identity.

Muslims of India are Indians too,” he concluded.

On Tuesday, Indian independent news outlet Scroll reported that more than 1,100 Muslim families had been evicted from their homes in the Indian state of Assam in a drive the authorities described as an effort to reclaim government and forest land.

On Sunday, the second day of the demolition drive, the Assam government demolished the homes of more than 600 Muslim families in the Lutumari Longjap Reserve Forest in Nagaon district.

On Saturday, more than 500 Muslim families were evicted across three districts — Nagaon, Golaghat and Hojai — amid heavy security, senior government officials told Scroll.

Most of those affected were Bengali Muslims.

The families in Lutumari had been living on more than 300 hectares of land inside the reserve forest for decades. However, the residents disputed the administration’s claim that they were encroachers, saying the government had settled them there.

“We were settled by the government in 1974,” Abdul Noor, a 44-year-old resident whose home was demolished on Sunday, told Scroll.