Assam: Mising Tribe's Protest Demanding Permanent Rehabilitation Enters Third Week

The protest by the villagers of Laika and Dodhia in Assam's Tinsukia district for permanent rehabilitation of 1,480 families has been going on for around three weeks now.

Nearly 2,000 people from Assam's Mising tribe have been protesting outside the Tinsukia deputy commissioner's office since December 21. However, their movement to find a permanent home has been ongoing for the last 70 years since a massive earthquake ravaged the state in 1950, reported Northeast Now.

Following the destruction in 1950, the villagers belonging to the indigenous Mising tribe were given temporary rehabilitation facility in the Dibru forest reserve and have not had permanent housing ever since. Most of the people of the two villages were relocated from the Murkongselek area of Dhemaji district.

The protesters have set up relief camps at Lezaihola Borguri near the office of the Tinsukia deputy commissioner to pressurise the district administration for fulfilling their demands.

"We have also sent a six-member team to Guwahati to meet chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal to discuss the issue of rehabilitation of 1,480 families of these villages," Apio Taid, a member of Laika and Dodhia Rehabilitation Committee said.

"We have been living in the makeshift camps for the past 10 and due to the cold, some of the protesters have fallen ill. We will continue with the protest until our demands are met," said a protestor.

The protesters, including children and the elderly, are staying in tarpaulin tents that aren't enough for the protection against cold. They are also running out of food, surviving on rations supplied by social organisations such as the Takam Mising Porin Kebang, or the All Mising students Union.

The tribe has been living in the forest villages and has remained cut off from the mainland – without access to basic facilities

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