Source: The Sangai Express
Shillong, November 25 2009:
Meghalaya Chief Minister DD Lapang has said that he will take up the issue of eviction notice served to the Khasis in Tamenglong district with Manipur Chief Minister O Ibobi.
Lapang gave this assurance when the Barak Valley Circle of Khasi Students' Union (KSU) today requested him for his intervention on the eviction notice.
At the meeting, Lapang said, the issue would be taken up in his discussion with his Manipur counterpart.
Organization president Katmi Pohthmi said that Kamranga Khasi village falls under the jurisdiction of Tousem sub-division of Tamenglong district, where the indigenous Khasi people have been residing permanently since 1940s and paying all the necessary taxes to the Tamenglong district authority and also living 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 pond and 50 bighas of cultivable land, Pohthmi said.
On June 25, 2008 when the villagers were performing their prayers in Kamranga Presbyterian Church, police personnel from Jiribam police station booked/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 Kamranga.