The recent land swap agreement between India and Bangladesh may spill into a major controversy in Assam as no agency on the ground knows from where the 1,240 acres of land that chief minister Tarun Gogoi claims to have retrieved from Bangladesh in South Assam’s Karimganj sector will actually come.
Sources in the Border Security Force told this newspaper they have maintained the status quo over 310.77 acres of disputed land claimed by Bangladesh. The largest plot of India’s disputed land adversely occupied by Bangladesh is in Palathal tea estate, where India has agreed to give away two patches (comprising 310.77 acres) of Indian land to Bangladesh.
A joint survey team, in a new estimate, found that only 90 acres was in dispute, and this will be handed over to Bangladesh. It is not known how the total disputed area got reduced in the joint survey, which was the basis of the land swap agreement. Besides the 310.77 acres, there is no dispute in the Karimganj sector. Mr Gogoi’s claim of gaining land in the land swap deal does not appear based on ground realities. In fact Mr Gogoi meticulously planned his claims to score political points over his opponents by referring to Bangladesh’s total claim over 1,597.5 acres as disputed land, of which India has ceded 193 acres in Boraibari in Dhubri, 74.5 acres in Palathal tea estate and 90 acres (Lathitila-Dumabari) in the Karimganj sector.