GUWAHATI: A drive to evict illegal settlers from Village Grazing Reserve (VGR) and Proposed Grazing Reserve (PGR) in Karbi Anglong and West Karbi Anglong will be taken out shortly, Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) chief executive member (CEM) Tuliram Ronghang said in Diphu on Monday.
“A meeting will representatives of all political parties, nationalist organisations, former MPs and MLAs, and former CEMs will be held tomorrow to discuss the issue,” Ronghang told reporters after an hour-long meeting with four Karbi organizations at KAAC headquarters in Diphu.
“We held discussions with ASDC, ASDC Youth Front, KSA and KNCA regarding the PGR/ VGR land issue. I am positive that we can resolve the issue through discussions and as per law. We will discuss again with all political parties tomorrow including ex-MP, ex-MLAs, ex-CEM, ex-EMs, ex-MACs,” Ronghang said.
“We will have to examine the order of the Supreme Court passed in 2011 in this regard,” Ronghang also said.
The meeting was held in the aftermath of the attack on a delegation of Karbi Students Association (KSA) by some Hindi-speaking people at Kheroni on February 15.
Altogether 11 KSA activists have been injured in the incident and undergoing treatment at the Diphu Medical College and Hospital (DMCH).
“We have extended Rs 1 lakh as financial assistance to those who were injured in the incident,” the CEM said.
A case bearing number 12/2024 under section 341/147/143/294/120B/153A 325/307/506/427 of IPC has been registered in this connection and six persons have been arrested, he further said.
“We are working for a permanent peace in Karbi angling. Dharna, protests can’t resolve our issues. We have to resolve all issues through dialogue,” he added.
Earlier, Autonomous State Demand Committee (ASDC) president Chandra Kanta Terang told reporters that the KAAC authorities accepted the demand of the party to evict all illegal settlers from the PGR and VGR of two hill districts shortly.
“We are satisfied with the outcome of the meeting as KAAC authorities accepted our demand. The process of eviction will start from tomorrow,” Terang said.
“We ASDC, Youth Front, KSA and KNCA have been staging protests at various levels to evict the illegal settlers from PGR and VGR since February 8. On February 15, the unfortunate incident took place in Kheroni in which 11 people were injured,” Terang said.
“We were careful from the very beginning that the incident can’t take an ugly turn and spread across Assam,” Terang said.
“We have submitted representation with our five demands. Firstly we demanded an eviction drive to be conducted in all VGR and PGRs within 30 days. We also asked the government to exempt indigenous tribals from the eviction drive,” he said.
“Secondly we demanded all migrants to be evicted from VGR and PGRs. It posed a serious threat to our democracy and the existence of our indigenous tribal people. We all demanded to remove all polling stations set up in VGR and PGRs of two hill districts,” he also said.
“Further we also demanded to removal of all names of the people living in VGR and PGRs from the electoral rolls of Assembly, Lok Sabha and KAAC and other local bodies,” he added.
