Guwahati, Aug. 28 -- The Assam cabinet on Wednesday approved standard operating procedures (SOPs) that mandate police scrutiny of all land transfers between people belonging to different religions, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said. "Today the state cabinet has approved a SOPs for inter-religion land transfers. In a sensitive state like Assam the transfer of land between two religious groups needs to be handled very carefully. All such transfer proposals will now come to the state government who will scrutinize each of them through our special branch (of police)," chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.. The CM said that the branch will look at the source of the funds meant for the land purchase, whether it has been reflected in tax returns (of the purchaser), if the purchase will affect the social fabric of the locality, whether there's opposition to the sale from local residents (and such concerns have been addressed or not) and if the sale has an impact on national security in certain cases. "All such issues will be examined carefully and thereafter we will inform the deputy commissioners (of districts) on whether they should allow the transfer of land or not and accordingly the DCs will take the final decision," Sarma said. He added that the same procedure would be applied for non-government organisations from outside Assam who seek to get land in the state for establishing educational, health institutes etc. "All such proposals will be examined from national security angle and thereafter land sale permission will be given."...