Laika-Dadhia and Mikir Bamuni Row: Debabrata Saikia Moves NHRC Over 'Violation' of Land and Human Rights

GUWAHATI: Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Debabrata Saikia has written a letter to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India to draw its attention to two ongoing instances of 'gross injustice' being meted out to many members of ST and OBC communities in Tinsukia and Nagaon districts of Assam by the State government, by way of 'violation' of their land rights and basic human rights.

"The first instance involves around 1,300 ST and OBC families which were settled in the Laika-Dadhia area of the Dibru-Saikhowa Wildlife Sanctuary in Tinsukia district after the great earthquake of 1950. The Government is now seeking to evict them, thereby going back on successive assurances over the last three years or so, that these hapless people would be suitably rehabilitated. Consequently, the affected people have been staging a protest since the last week of December, 2020 at a make-shift site near the DC's office, Tinsukia. Three protesters, including a pregnant lady and her unborn child, have died because they were unaware to bear the chill of winter in the make-shift camp," lamented Saikia in his letter. He underlined that many other protesters are suffering from fever, nose-bleed etc.

Saikia claimed that the affected families have been living in the Laika-Dadhia since the 1950s and before the area was notified as a Wildlife Sanctuary. Hence, their just demands ought to be heeded by the Government of Assam and they should not be compelled to stage protests by braving the cold weather.

Further, highlighting the stir regarding the Mikir Bamuni Grant Land, Saikia said, "Successive generations of some members of the ST and OBC communities have been cultivating some land as ryots in the Mikir Bamuni Grant under the Samaguri Revenue Circle of Nagaon district since 1981. However, at the behest of the State government, the Nagaon district administration is handing over the land in question to a private solar power company named Azure Power Global Limited."

He alleged that the land was handed over to the company without giving any proper notification to the affected people and many of them were given only one day's notice to file their objections, if any.

The leader lamented that this sort of 'harassment and illegal deprivation' of the fundamental land rights of simple folks in both cases is a violation of basic human rights. Moreover, such acts are definitely in violation of various provisions of Section 3 of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, he added. He urged the NHRC to take suo motu cognizance of the matter and issue notices to the Government of Assam and the district administrations of Tinsukia and Nagaon to show cause for the 'injustice' and initiate urgent steps to ensure that the ST and OBC victims are not deprived of their land and livelihood in such an illegal manner.

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