Pak Sthan Suk
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Pak Sthan Suk vis-à-vis Pakistan Suk
==2021== Kangkan Kalita, Nov 12, 2021: The Times of India
Assam: Water project named after ‘Pakistan’ stirs a row
GUWAHATI: The naming of a water supply project after 'Pakistan' in upper Assam's Dhemaji district, inhabited by ethnic communities, has triggered a controversy forcing the public health engineering department to remove 'Pakistan' from the nameplate.
A simple philological distortion is at the root of the controversy whereby the original name, Pak Sthan Suk, meaning a location that can be reached through a winding road, has become 'Pakisthan Suk'! For years, this name has been in circulation and even official documents have vetted the name. So the PHE department named the water project 'Pakistan Suba (meaning colony) Water Supply Scheme'. PHE minister, Ranjeet Kumar Dass, assured that he would resolve the issue and take prompt action.
Sub-divisional officer, Dhemaji (Sadar), Nandita Roy Gohain, who led an inspection team of officers from the district administration on Thursday, said, "The original name 'Pak Sthan Suk' somehow became 'Pakistan Suk' and 'Pakistan' was officially recorded in the documents of the PHE department.”
"Ancestors of the present residents gave the name Pak Sthan Suk. It was an isolated land once due to the distant location, mostly inhabited by Ahom and Chutia community people. There are no Muslim villagers there," Gohain told TOI.
Activists of the Bir Lachit Sena erased the name Pakistan from the nameplate of the project on Wednesday as the PHE department did not take action despite the issue creating a storm in the media in the last couple of days.
Dass personally had a word with the Dhemaji MLA and education minister Ranoj Pegu and Jal Jeevan Mission, Assam, director, considering the gravity of the matter. Director of Assam Jal Jeevan Mission, Akash Deep said, as informed by the Dhemaji DC, 'Pakistan Suba' has been removed on a temporary basis.
Gohain later said that the project has been renamed Burhakuri Dakhin Suk after revenue village Burhakuri under which comes the area. "The people residing here are from Other Backward Class (OBC). No minority people are to be found there," she asserted.
Burhakuri village head, Parul Chutia (38), said the entire village has 249 families and the water supply project was built for the families of 'Pakistan Suk'. Chutia said the Burhakuri village has four segments and 'Pakistan Suk' is one of them.
"That is the way the name is being pronounced. But we have never written it in any official communication," she added.
Government sources said PHE department records show that since 1992 this name has been in use. "There are formalities which need to be completed before the name 'Pakistan' is permanently removed," the sources said.
