Shillong, Nov. 20: A Jaintia hills-based youth organisation has urged Meghalaya chief minister D.D. Lapang to help about 600 Khasi-Jaintia people living in Manipur who have been issued eviction notices.

The Jaintia Youth Federation hoped that Lapang would take up the matter with Manipur chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh so that his government could put on hold the decision to evict the poor villagers from their land.

Delegates of the federation, after visiting Kamranga village under Tousem subdivision of Tamenglong district in Manipur, told reporters here last evening that Imphal East deputy commissioner Lakshmi Kumar Singh had issued eviction notices to several Khasi-Jaintia families in the village on November 3.

The notice stated that a police training centre would be constructed in the village.

The federation’s president, D.L. Rymbai, said the Khasi-Jaintia community in Meghalaya should condemn the ill treatment of the villagers.

“We cannot accept the decision of the Manipur government to construct the police training centre at the village by evicting our own people,” Rymbai said, adding that the Khasi-Jaintia families had been residing in the village for the past five decades.

He urged Lapang to intervene immediately as the Khasi-Jaintia villagers had nowhere to go and were living under a cloud of insecurity.

“As the villagers depend on agriculture for their survival, their eviction from the land would bring undue misery to them as they have nowhere to go,” Rymbai said.

He said the district administration had taken possession of four fishing ponds near the agricultural land of the Khasi-Jaintia villagers, who were also facing harassment from police and Meitei tribals.

Rymbai alleged that some Meiteis had entered the village on November 4 and misbehaved with the women.

According to the federation, the Zeliangrong Students’ Union, Tousem area along with Kamranga Khasia villagers, Kuki Inpi Jiri-Tamenglong Zone, Kuki Students' Organisation, Jiri-Tamenglong Zone and Khasi Students’ Union Barak Valley circle have already opposed the eviction order.