"Grant Land Rights Exclusively to Indigenous People": Demands AJYCP

The Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) on Tuesday staged a massive protest in Guwahati, demanding concrete measures to safeguard land rights for Assam’s indigenous communities.

The mass sit-in demonstration held at the Lakhidhar Bora Kshetra witnessed the participation of thousands of AJYCP members raising longstanding demands for the implementation of an Inner Line Permit and legal guarantees to protect the ancestral land of the indigenous people.

Raising slogans against the marginalisation of the native population, AJYCP leaders called upon the state and central governments to enact stringent policies that would secure land ownership for indigenous residents of Assam and restrict unchecked migration from other states.

Speaking to the media, AJYCP President Palash Changmai spoke about their demands, "Our foremost demand is that the government must grant land rights exclusively to the indigenous people of Assam. The rights to buy and sell land should be reserved solely for them. We are aware that a law exists in the Assam Legislative Assembly prohibiting land transactions within a 5-kilometre radius of the Barpeta and Bordowa Satras. We urge the government to implement this law uniformly across the state."

"Furthermore, we demand that land rights be given only to those whose families have resided in Assam for at least three generations, in other words, to the truly indigenous population. Thirdly, we call for the immediate implementation of an inter-state Inner Line Permit (ILP) system. This is crucial to prevent suspected illegal immigrants from moving to other regions of the state after being evicted from encroached lands," he added. 

Changmai also added that today's sit-in demonstration is a clear message to the government: "If you genuinely wish to protect the indigenous people of Assam, then start by ensuring their land rights."

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