Guwahati: At least five acres of encroached land was reclaimed by the forest department at the Kanyakuchi Reserve Forest in Goalpara, Assam on Saturday.
A Forest source said that over the past few years, encroachers had been setting up pig farms, goat farms and betel nut farms inside the reserve forest land.
They had allegedly destroyed forest areas to do so.
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However, taking cognizance of the issue, the forest officials from the Rangjuli range started an operation to evict all such illegal farms.
The source said that some people whom the department has not yet identified, encroached on the forest land and took several acres of land to set up illegal businesses.
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The goat and pig farms were also being operated in an inhumane way.
They had also planted several hundreds of betel nut trees by cutting the forest cover, the source said.
The source said that the forest department is now trying to identify the alleged encroachers.