Members of the co-ordination committee inspect the Umkiang border in Jaintia Hills. A file picture

Shillong, Nov. 22: Several NGOs, along with the Khasi Students Union (KSU), the Federation of Khasi, Jaintia and Garo Peoples (FKJGP) and the Hynniewtrep National Youth Front (HNYF) today urged the government to start border fencing right from zero line.

The appeal came after the Meghalaya government recently asked deputy commissioners to resume border fencing at the earliest.

The NGOs, part of the government-constituted Co-ordination Committee on International Border Fencing, said they were not consulted while chief secretary Ranjan Chatterjee gave directions to the deputy commissioners. Chief minister Donkupar Roy heads the co-ordination committee as its chairman.

“As the co-ordination committee is an official body on matters related to international fencing, we should have been informed about the decision,” a member of the committee and KSU general secretary Hamlet Dohling said today.

Following the October 30 serial blasts in Assam and the subsequent apprehension about illegal migrants from Bangladesh, including militants, sneaking into the Northeast, the chief secretary had a meeting with Union government officials at the ministry of home affairs last month regarding the early completion of the fencing.

Meghalaya has a 443-km-long border with Bangladesh, of which more than 50 per cent fencing has been completed.

The fence is to prevent Bangladeshi criminals from entering and also aimed at preventing influx and smuggling.

There is opposition from the border residents and the NGOs as they fear that they will lose vast cultivable land once the fencing is completed. They want the fencing to start from the zero line itself instead of leaving the mandatory 150-yard gap.

The Meghalaya government last year after a meeting with the National Building Construction Company, which was constructing the border fencing, decided not to carry out fencing in controversial areas in Jaintia Hills and Khasi Hills.

Fencing along the Indo-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya, especially between Nongjri in East Khasi Hills and Jaliakhola in Jaintia Hills, was suspended following the recommendation of the co-ordination committee that fresh survey should be carried in these areas.

The demarcation of the international border, separating erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from Assam (now Assam and Meghalaya), Tripura and West Bengal, was completed in the mid-Sixties.

After the demarcation, there were certain pockets in both the countries, which were described “adversely held areas”.

In Meghalaya, the adversely held areas are Lyngkhat, Kurinallah, Pyrdiwah in East Khasi Hills and Tamabil, Baljuri, Rongkhong, Amki, Amjlong and Muktapur in Jaintia Hills.

Boro Hills in Khasi Hills sector and Labhacherra and Nuncherra Tea Gardens in Jaintia Hills are “adversely held areas” in Bangladesh.

According to the HNYF president and member of the committee, G.H. Kharshanlor, fencing cannot be carried out in adversely held areas, as the matter has to be settled by both India and Bangladesh.