The IHRA also cautioned the state government and the implementing agency to stop discriminating against the affected landowners by using police force, which it said is a first degree violation of fundamental human rights.
TFM Kangpokpi Representative
The International Human Rights Association, Manipur (IHRA) reaffirmed its boycott over the ongoing construction and up-gradation of Asian Highway Number 1 under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway in Tengnoupal District.
IHRA president Mark Thangmang Haokip stated that human rights will not halt boycott over the up-gradation of Asian Highway Number 1 (AH-1) until a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ is arrived between the International Human Rights Association, Asian Development Bank, and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway.
He recalled that the association had on February 12, 2021, officially declared a boycott over the construction and up-gradation of AH-1 after two month long investigation with the help of Asian Development Bank and the RTU.
He said that according to their investigation, the strife between the affected landowners and the implementing agencies is one hundred percent instigated by corruption issues caused by responsible implementing agencies, including Tengnoupal District Administration, and surrounding third-party involvement while adding that it is an inhuman act and a corruption and crime perpetrated by the implementing agency besides the incompetent state government.
It has been 149-days (from February 12 to July 12), since the boycott began, and IHRA did not witness any positive engagement from the government to solve the imbroglio, rather the implementing agency, the state government, and the district administration making several attempts to destroy the intervention of the human rights body through some conspiracies, he added.
He alleged that the values and dignity of human rights are not honored and respected while they had shamefully undermined the image and sanctity of human rights, besides their intervention had carried out different kinds of strategies to disturb and threaten those affected landowners in altered manners as they even served force eviction notice against them.
“One IRB personnel had also been arrested and detained in police custody then suspended from his service because his family members had taken part in the agitation for demanding fair compensation while other protesting villagers were also threatened and arrested apart from detaining without proper reason”, he alleged.
He further said that they condoned different kinds of tricks and policies to deconstruct the unity and relationship of the landowners and demoralised them for bringing their rights to claim for the fair compensation demand to turn into topsy-turvy.
Meanwhile, the IHRA also strongly condemned the alleged misapprehension made by the Manipur government, NHIDCL, and Asian Highway Land Affected Chairmen/Chiefs Association (ALACA) that there shall be no compensation of land for acquiring highway concerning the 1963 survey of land for the national highways made by the government, which has published in the newspapers, stating that it is not the accurate law in schedule area/indigenous tribal land and is purely misleading.
Mark Thangmang Haokip said that the news also reported that such advice was given to them by a revenue commissioner, who does not acquire the knowledge about the non-revenue land/schedule area/indigenous tribal land.
In that such revenue, the act has no place in it and the claim is totally against the rights of compensation on Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation & Resettlement Act, 2013, Indigenous Land Rights declared by United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous People, 2007 and the Constitutional Rights Article 371 (C) and it also violates ADB’s safeguard policy, he argued.
He also said that the members of ALACA and the implementing agency, who are making such press statements, were equally involved in mismanaging the funds for compensation to the affected landowners while adding that they carried out such an agreement for hiding the crime they had committed.
He further contended that ALACA committee does not represent the affected landowner, stating that it was a fake committee created by those responsible persons who had caused the mismanagement of crores of compensation money.
The International Human Rights Association, Manipur, is ready to welcome the finalisation for bringing solutions to the imbroglio through signing a Memorandum of Understanding between IHRA Manipur, ADB, and Ministry of Road Transport and Highway within monsoon, he added.
However, the IHRA president said that it shall not accept any work schedule to be carried out by the state government before an understanding is reached between IHRA and the central government.
The IHRA also cautioned the state government and the implementing agency to stop discriminating against the affected landowners by using police force, which it said is a first degree violation of fundamental human rights.