More than 1,100 Muslim families have 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, Indian independent news outlet Scroll has reported.

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.

“We are originally from nearby Juria town but were settled by the government as our forefathers were landless. Altogether, 300 landless families were given four bighas of land each,” he said.

Noor said the residents had challenged the eviction in the Gauhati High Court but failed to obtain relief.

He also said more than 10 mosques, some of them over 50 years old, had been demolished during the drive.

“We used to work in the forest department as labourers. That’s why many were brought [here],” he told Scroll.

In June, the All India Union of Forest Working People had urged the Assam government to stop the planned eviction of villagers from the Lutumari Longjap Reserve Forest.

The organisation argued that residents of four villages in the area had been settled under the taungya system, a colonial-era forest management practice, and should not be treated as ordinary encroachers.

Under the system, forest communities cultivated food crops alongside commercially valuable trees while working for the Forest Department. Introduced by the British in the mid-19th century, the practice was later used in parts of Assam.

The four villages are Kandarpa Longjap, Padumoni, Hatijur and No. 9 Kheroni.

According to data from Assam’s Revenue and Disaster Management Department and district authorities compiled by Scroll, around 19,000 families have been evicted from government land in the past decade of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rule in the state. The majority of those evicted were Muslims.