For more than a week now, the entire populations of two Upper Assam villages – around 3,000 men, women, children, most of them belonging to...
For more than a week now, the entire populations of two Upper Assam villages – around 3,000 men, women, children, most of them belonging to the state’s Mising tribe – have been camping in Tinsukia town, next to the deputy collector’s office. They have vowed not to move till their demands are met: of being given new lives in a new place.
“It is biting cold and we have been living and eating like pigs, but we are not going anywhere because we don’t have anywhere to go,” said 65-year old Rajaram Pait, a resident of Dodhia, one of two villages. The other is Laika. “Maybe this is where our cursed existence will come to an end.”
Disease and sickness are already starting to invade the makeshift shelters. A woman fell sick on Tuesday; was rushed back home, but died soon after. Another woman has reportedly become critically ill.
Two ‘forest villages’
Laika and Dodhia are “forest villages” – they are located inside the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park. But India’s Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 expressly prohibits any kind of human settlement within a national park. This means that the government does not carry out any developmental works in Laika and Dodhia. If it did, it would...
