Meghalaya villagers protest boundary pact with Assam

Border residents and pressure groups voice their displeasure with the March 29 agreement after the Chief Ministers of Meghalaya and Assam propel the second phase of talks.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma. File | Photo Credit: PTI

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Villagers of Meghalaya living along the boundary with Assam and pressure groups have resumed their opposition to the partial boundary pact between the two States.

Their protests followed the decision of the Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Meghalaya counterpart, Conrad K. Sangma to go ahead with the second phase of talks to resolve the remaining six dispute sectors along their 885KM boundary.

The two States had signed a memorandum of understanding on March 29 to seal the “fifty-fifty” deal on six “less complicated” sectors in presence of Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi. The agreement is irreversible, officials said.

But the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo tribal people living along the border have rejected the pact on these six sectors. They claim these lands traditionally belonging to the Meghalaya tribal chiefs and were handed over to Assam on a platter.

The protest in the State capital Shillong on August 22 against the pact was organised jointly by several groups such as the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU), Federation of Khasi Jaintia and Garo People (FKJGP) and the Joint Action Committee on Border of Meghalaya. The people in the affected villages also participated in the sit-in protest.

FKJGP leader Pritam Arengh said the Meghalaya government gave in to the diktats of the Assam government and ceded their ancestral lands. The five mutually agreed principles such as historical facts, ethnicity, administrative ease and the willingness of the people were ignored, he claimed.

He also said a petition challenging the March 29 pact would be filed in the Supreme Court. “We are consulting lawyers for the purpose,” he said.

Demanding a review of the memorandum of understanding, the organisations advised the Meghalaya government not to be hasty with its decisions during the second phase of boundary talks. “This is the least the Conrad Sangma government can do to undo the damage done during the first phase of talks,” a spokesperson of the KSU said.