EMN
DIMAPUR, FEBRUARY 23
SEVERAL student organizations such as Karbi Students Association (KSA), All Dimasa Students Union, All Assam Gurkha Students Union, United Students Union of Karbi Anglong, Karbi Re-awakening Organisation and other civil organisations, including KUYA, KSYC, AIKNA, DKH, AASA, KMSS, have called for a road blockade on NH 39 and 36 leading to Nagaland including the railways for six hours starting February 25.
The blockade is to protest the alleged unabated encroachment of the territory under the jurisdiction of Karbi Anglong district of Assam by Nagaland along the Assam-Nagaland border areas of Daldali and Rongapahar Reserve Forest.
The organisations, in a press statement today, have alleged that ‘Nagaland counterpart has already encroached a large area of our forest land and it has become order of the day as intrudes, cut jungles, construct road and houses etc. When police force from Assam ask the encroachers to evict the areas, they resort to fight back.’
Describing an incident on February 22, the statement referred to the arrival of ‘a large number of people from Nagaland entereing the area under Daldali Forest reserve and erecting a signboard containing the writing “ Govt of Nagaland, Site for Horticulture”. This action was interpreted as the encroachment having patronage from the state government of Nagaland.
The civil organizations hence are being pressurized to take up certain steps to counter and stop this continuous illegal encroachment on our land, the statement said, adding appeals to the state government to address the impasse has met with no response.
A memorandum was also reportedlt submitted to the Chief Minister of Assam and Chief Executive Member of Karbi Anglong Autonomous District Council to take up measures to battle illegal encroachment, but these too have also evoked no response, it said while describing the situation as volatile along border area of Daldali Reserve Forest.
The intent, the release said, is not to harass people in Nagaland by the road blockade but the civil bodies are being forced to adopt such a measure owing to the ‘inactive role of the government of Nagaland, and its patronage given to encroachers’. The civil organizations have also sought support of the public of Karbi Anglong as a principal stand to save the ‘ancestral land’ from external take over.
Only on Saturday, a local daily reported that the Elder’s Committee, Rangapahar Crossing, Zhimomi College and Satamtilla Village Joint Action Committee had appealed to the state government to act on a similar allegation encroachment along the Assam-Nagaland border which was termed as ‘disputed area’.
They had urged the Deputy Commissioner of Dimapur and the state government to adopt measures to ensure the implementation of the joint agreement in 1971 and reaffirmed between the two states. They also alleged that the encroachment was being carried out by outsiders and illegal immigrants holding Assam government pattas.
