Forest expansion to make 400 indigenous families 'homeless’

The villages are Ducharipara, Moidangpara, Kishtapara, Thalipara, Aungaipara, Barapara and Bhutanhapara under Kaptai mouza no-329.

Local Union Parishad chairmen, members, headmen and Karbaries (village chief) from the seven villages on Thursday submitted a memorandum to the chairman of Rangamati Hill District Council (RHDC), seeking his intervention to stop what they called land grabbing.

In the memorandum, the local leaders said that indigenous people of Marma, Tripura, Tangchangya and Khiyang communities have been living in the lands for about 150 years, doing Jhum cultivation.

They also said the villagers applied for settlement of the lands in their names, which is waiting for approval by district administration for long.

The forest department is expanding plantation in the hills in the seven villages by evicting villagers, they alleged in the memorandum.

The forest department has started clearing the jungles at some of the places to plant saplings, they said.

In the memorandum, they said about 100 indigenous families were evicted from their lands in the area in 1993.

The displaced families are now landless but the government did neither take any step to rehabilitate them nor give them any compensations, the memorandum said.

Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Asit Ranjan Pal, when contacted over phone yesterday said afforestation is not for the government or the forest department. It's for the people.

He denied the allegation of eviction. "The allegation is totally false and baseless", he said.

RHDC Chairman Dr Manik Lal Dewan said, "I will look into the matter and take steps so that ethnic people are not eviction from their lands".