As many as 450 houses were razed and over 3,000 people were evicted in Sootea in Assam’s Sonitpur district on 5-6 December 2019 after “a local legislator entered 10 villages in the area with bulldozers and paramilitary personnel,” Arab News reported.

A press release issued by Jamaat-e-Islami-Hind (JIH) on 26 December 2019 claimed that 426 Muslim families were evicted because “they belonged to the minority community and did not vote for BJP MLA Padma Hazarika.”

The release added that a JIH team led by its secretary Mohammed Ahmed had visited the location to take a stock of the situation.