GUWAHATI
A tribal council in Meghalaya has joined the list of individuals and organisations in opposing the State government’s deal with Assam to resolve a 50-year-old boundary dispute.
The Assam and Meghalaya governments had on March 29 finalised the pact to divide 36.79 sq. km of disputed areas. The two governments had taken up six of 12 disputed sectors in the first phase of discussions.
The Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) claimed that the dispute areas belong to private parties and the Meghalaya government has neither the authority nor the right to hand them over to Assam.
“The government will be required to take the council’s consent according to Section 41 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, before any handover,” the KHADC’s chief executive member Titosstarwell Chyne said.
The KHADC is one of three tribal councils in Meghalaya created under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. Each of them function as a government within a specified territory.
Apart from the KHADC, some traditional institutions such as Hima (a Khasi state) and villagers not keen on being tagged with Assam have threatened to go to court if the Meghalaya government cannot review the boundary deal.
The Meghalaya government has said agreement, based on a list of disputed sectors submitted to Assam in 2011, cannot be revisited. The deal remains to be ratified by Parliament and the Assemblies of the two States concerned before the boundary is redrawn.
The residents of two border villages – Malchapara and Salbari – have said they will not give up without a fight. They fear they will lose the tribal rights if they are separated from Meghalaya.
“We are consulting legal experts for taking the matter to court, if the government does not listen to our voices of protest,” Malchapara leader Jewash Sangma said.
The disgruntled people of these and other such border villages have been carrying out protest rallies against the boundary deal for almost a month now.
