New Delhi: The Assam government has approved the compensation for those whose houses were demolished by the police in Nagaon in 2022, Scroll.in has reported.
The houses were demolished in an eviction drive after a police station was set on fire. According to the Scroll story, a fish trader, Safikul Islam, was allegedly killed in police custody on May 20, 2022. His family had accused police of demanding Rs 10,000 and a duck in bribe for releasing him.
A day after Islam’s death, a mob torched the police station. After the police station was burnt down, the police demolished the houses of the accused men.
Now the state home department has decided to pay Rs 10 lakh for each pucca demolished house and Rs 2.5 lakh for the kutcha houses. This has been communicated to Dipankar Nath, a senior government advocate for Assam.
“An online sanction proposal for concurrence has been moved to the finance department on 30/04/2024,” Scroll quoted the home department as saying.
“Now, concurrence from the finance department is awaited and will complete the payment of compensation as and when concurrence received from that department,” it added.
The Gauhati high court has recently stated that a government enquiry committee had established that the fish trader’s death took place in the police custody. The court also asked the government advocate about the government’s timeline on paying compensation to the wife of the slain trader.
“One account of the custodial death of Safiqul Islam, some dispute arose and people were collected in the police station. They created a ruckus there and then after the police had bulldozed the house there. That’s why the whole incident happened,” the court said during the hearing.
