Source: Hueiyen News Service
Shillong, November 25 2009:
Chief Minister DD Lapang said he will take up the issue of eviction notice served to the Khasis in Tamenglong district of Manipur with Manipur Chief Minister Ibobi Singh.
Lapang gave this assurance when the Barak Valley Circle of Khasi Students' Union (KSU) today requested the Chief Minister for his personal intervention on public grievances against the eviction notice served to Kamranga Khasi villagers of Tamenglong district of Manipur.
At the meeting with the Barak Valley Circle of KSU, Lapang said the issue will be taken up in his discussion with Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh.
Organisation president Katmi Pohthmi said, "We will be pleased if the Chief Minister intervene into the matter and discuss it with the Government of Manipur".
He said that the Kamranga Khasi village falls under the jurisdiction of Tousem subdivision in Tamenglong district, Manipur where the indigenous Khasi people have been settled permanently since 1940s and paying all the necessary taxes to the Tamenglong district authority and also live peacefully not only among themselves but also with the adjacent villages like Phaithol and Uchathol Hmar village.
The Khasis in these areas have been facing many problems since last year.
In March 2008, some miscreants entered Kamranga Khasi village and encroached their land - rubber plantation of 15 bighas, three fisheries and 50 bighas of cultivable, Pohthmi said.
On June 25, 2008 when the villagers were performing their prayers in Kamranga Presbyterian Church, police personnel from Jiribam Police Station booked or arrested Salan Suchiang, the village chairman without any reason and kept him one night in the lock-up and released him the next day at about 10 am, he said.
Again on October 29 this year, an eviction notice was served by the sub-deputy collector, Jiribam to the inhabitant of Kamtanga.