The Gauhati High Court has taken note of a scam involving the rehabilitation of 156 Chakma tribal families displaced by the Hollongi greenfield airport in Arunachal Pradesh.
The ₹1,200-crore airport, coming up near State capital Itanagar, had led to the fall of the Congress and the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Arunachal Pradesh in 2016.
According to a PIL plea filed by the affected families in 2021 seeking a Central Bureau of India probe into the scam, about ₹35.92 crore meant for their rehabilitation and resettlement never reached them. The money was instead siphoned off by the Magistrate of the State’s Papum Pare district through the Chakma Rehabilitation and Resettlement Committee (CRRC) comprising people not affected or distantly connected with the airport project, they said.
