OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOKRAJHAR: Bodoland Janajati Suraksa Mancha (BJSM) on Wednesday fired salvo at State Finance Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma over land issue in BTC during election campaign meetings. Sarma has assured to allot land pattas to all citizens in the council formed under the 6th Schedule of the Indian Constitution.
Strongly reacting to this, the president of BJSM, Janaklal Basumatary said that Himanta Biswa Sarma's promise to allot land pattas and to grant citizenship to all in BTC was totally illegal and unconstitutional. He said that Sarma was not doing his constitutional duty and he must know that issuing land patta or land settlement or purchase or sale transaction in notified tribal reserved land known as tribal belts and blocks was restricted and regulated under provision of Chapter-X of the Assam Land and Land Revenue Regulation, 1886 as amended in 1947 for protection of the tribal people of Assam.
"There are 17 tribal belts and 30 tribal blocks with total 47 tribal belts and blocks in Assam covering 14 districts - Barpeta, Bongaigaon, Darrang, Dibrugarh, Dhemaji, Dhubri, Goalpara, Kamrup, Kokrajhar, Lakhimpur, Marigaon, Nagaon, Nalbari, Sonitpur, Tinsukia districts. Between 1947 to 1951, another 31 protected belts and blocks were constituted. Non-tribal permanent residents before the notification of tribal belts and blocks have not lost any land right in Assam as well as in BTC," he said. He said that there were a large number of illegal encroachers settled in tribal belts and blocks and these encroachers were liable to be evicted forthwith as per Assam land law. But successive governments did not evict these encroachers from tribal belts and blocks. These people were now demanding land pattas in BTC, he added. He also said that not only in tribal belts and blocks but reserve forests and VGR and PGR reserved land had also been encroached upon by the non-tribal people who were liable to be evicted. "This government is not doing its duty for eviction of this encroachers and alloting the land to landless tribal people," said Basumatary.
He said that encroachers were demanding land patta in tribal belts and blocks in BTC. Instead of alloting and issuing patta to tribal people, political leaders like HimantaBiswaSarma were promising to issue land patta in BTC protected area to these encroachers within 15 days after his party comes to power in the BTC, Basumatary said. "The utterances of HimantaBiswaSarma are illegal, unconstitutional and against the UN resolution for protection of land rights of the indigenous tribal people in 2007," he added.
Basumatary said that Sarma had failed to perform his duty of evicting illegal encroachers from tribal notified land and providing social justice to the socially weaker section of tribal people of Assam as well as of BTC. He said that people should stand against Sarma's BTC aggression aimed at creating communal tension in tribal protected area.