Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday his government would “break the backbone” of “Miyas” if the Bharatiya Janata Party returns to power in the state’s upcoming assembly elections, news agency PTI reported.
Addressing a campaign rally in Dhakuakhana in Lakhimpur district, Sarma said his administration had acted in the interests of the state’s “indigenous people”.
“And those who came from Bangladesh and encroached on Assam’s land and homes, we broke their hands and legs politically,” he was quoted as saying.
He added: “This time, we will break the very backbone of the Bangladeshi Miyas, so that they cannot dare the Assamese people.”
In Assam, “Miya” is widely considered a derogatory term used for Bengali-origin Muslims, often implying undocumented immigration from Bangladesh. The term, originally derived from a common honorific among South Asian Muslims, has in recent years been reclaimed by sections of the community as a self-identifier for those whose families migrated during the colonial period.
Sarma has made several remarks about the community in recent months, including saying it was his responsibility to “make them suffer” and that he had asked party workers to submit applications to remove names of Miya Muslims from electoral rolls.
On February 26, the Gauhati High Court sought his response to petitions calling for action over alleged hate speech against Muslims. Earlier in the month, the Supreme Court of India declined to hear petitions seeking the registration of a police case against him on similar grounds.
During Friday’s campaign, Sarma also said that authorities had cleared 150,000 bighas of encroached land in the past five years, according to PTI.
Since the BJP came to power in Assam in 2016, the state has carried out multiple eviction drives, many of them in areas largely inhabited by Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Voting in the Assam assembly elections is scheduled for April 9, with results due on May 4