Bandh during PM's visit proves anti-tribal attitude of non-Bodo organizations, says RUKM chief

From our Correspondent

KOKRAJHAR, January 13: The bandh call given by some organizations, including AKRSU and ABMSU, during the visit of Prime Minister rendra Modi in Kokrajhar on January 19 has proved the anti-Bodo and anti-tribal attitude of these organizations, said Kumar Prithviraj Dev Mech, the chief of Royal Union of Koch Mech (RUKM), in a press statement.

Dev Mech said in the year 1947, the subject of tribal belts and blocks had been included in the tenth chapter of the Assam Land Revenue and Regulation Act. As per that law it had been declared that the unprotected class of non-tribal people who entered this tribal belts and blocks after the year of 1947 can never stay in this place legally. The non-tribal people who had entered the tribal belt and blocks as well as the present BTC area after the year 1947, are illegal immigrants who had illegally encroached this area by cheating the simple tribal people.

Dev Mech said that most of the non-Bodo people were illegal immigrants in the tribal belts and blocks. These people had no legitimate rights in tribal belts and blocks since they had encroached this place illegally from the sons of the soil tribal people. They being the illegal immigrants and encroachers, proclaiming themselves to be the majority of this place while demanding the distortion or deduction of various areas from the BTC area as well as opposing the creation of the proposed Bodoland state, was not legal, he said.

He said that until and unless the tribal belts and blocks along with the present BTC area were made free from all such illegal non-tribal immigrants, till then no one could assure the full safety and security of the tribal or indigenous people.

Dev Mech  rued that it was because of the government’s negligence that already major portion of the tribal belts blocks area had been illegally encroached upon by the non-tribal encroachers but the government was not taking any action against the encroachers for vote-bank politics. He said that if the government did not evict all the illegal non-tribal encroachers soon, the tribal people would be compelled to take strong steps to evict them.

Meanwhile, on behalf of the tribal people, Kumar Prithviraj Mech declared the bandh on January 19 as illegal and demanded ban of such anti-tribal organizations in the tribal areas. The bandh has been called by the non-Bodo organizations of BTC in protest against the Prime Minister’s visit to BTC area. He regarded the bandh call as anti-Bodo activity and called upon all Bodo organizations to have zero tolerance towards the ‘anti-Bodo activities’ of the non-Bodo organizations.