The Gauhati High Court has directed the Assam government to specify the time by which compensation would be paid to the six families whose houses were demolished in Nagaon district in 2022.

The houses were demolished a day after a mob set the Batadrave police station on fire in protest against the custodial death of a fish vendor Safiqul Islam on May 21, 2022.

Hearing the demolition case on Friday, the court in its order said the counsel of the state’s finance department has been granted a week’s time to apprise the court as to by what time the compensation would be paid to the affected persons pursuant to the proposal sent by the state home and political (A) department.

Zunaid Khalid, the advocate for a petitioner, told The Telegraph on Saturday that the division bench comprising Chief Justice Vijay Bishnoi and Justice Suman Shyam, during the proceedings on Friday, told the government counsel that the matter was “long pending and it needs to be settled by the next date of hearing since the compensation amount was already determined and approved by the government”.

The next day of the hearing is May 14.

The home department had submitted the compensation report before the court on Friday in compliance with the court order on April 4, Khalid said.

The bench had given the direction while hearing the suo motu PIL registered on May 22, 2022, seeking compensation for the persons whose houses were demolished. The court had turned Khalid’s petition for compensation for the affected persons into a suo motu PIL.

The court had on January 3, 2023, ordered an assessment by a government-constituted for compensation to the demolition victims.

The demolished houses were located in a minority-dominated area. Among the houses razed in Chalnabori was that of Safiqul Islam who died in police custody.

Sources said the compensation for a demolished pucca house would be Rs 10 lakh
and Rs 2.5 lakh for a kutcha house. One of the beneficiaries, Mojibur Rahman, lost a pucca and a kutcha house.

They also said a compensation amount of Rs 2.5 lakh has been earmarked against the sixth beneficiary on the list — the legal heir of Safiqul Islam.

The amount will be released once the legal heir certificate is submitted to the administration.

The administration had not overtly linked the demolition drive to the arson attack on the Batadraba police station.

A senior officer had said the demolition was carried out against encroachers and that most of those who had burnt down the police station were encroachers.

The then special DGP (law and order) G.P. Singh, currently the state police chief, had then told mediapersons that the police had found out during the investigation that most of those who came to the Batadrava police station (which was set on fire) were living on encroached land.

The high court on Friday also directed the government to file its response as to why interim compensation should not be granted to the widow of Safiqul Islam, who died in police custody.

Rashida Khatun had filed a writ petition “seeking appropriate compensation from the state of Assam” for the custodial death of her husband.

“Rashida is today fending for herself and her four minor children. They are surviving on the benevolence of other people,” Khalid said.