Terai Dooars-Anti-Gorkhaland bodies oppose area inclusion over the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha’s territorial demand

SILIGURI, 31 AUG: The Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad and eight other anti-Gorkhaland groups would jointly resist the proposed survey in the Terai and Dooars over the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha’s territorial demand.
The leaders of the newly-formed forum, the Dooars-Terai United Movement Committee, are now busy formulating strategies to counter the state government’s move to identify areas in the region vis-à-vis the GJMM claim. The first meeting of the joint land survey committee was held in Kolkata yesterday.
Notably, the GJMM leaders have submitted a list of 196 moujas in the Terai and 196 moujas in the Dooars to the state government, demanding their inclusion under the GTA jurisdiction.
Sources said the panel would publish notification in the newspapers, inviting applications in favour of the proposed transfer of the additional areas and also objections against the proposal. The locals would have to send their views on the matter to the committee’s office in Kolkata or to the district magistrate’s offices in Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri or to the Siliguri SDO office within a stipulated time following the publication of the notification.
The committee would conduct hearing on the subject after receiving the locals’ views, the sources said. The committee has asked the director of the Census Board to furnish data-based details of the demographic positions in the region as based on the Census 2011 report.
The ABAVP state general secretary, Mr Tej Kumar Toppo, said: “We would oppose any move that would be based on the Census report, 2011. We would demand that the 1951 Census report should be taken as the base for the identification of the areas spread across the Terai-Dooars. It is well-known that taking advantage of certain clauses in the 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty, the Nepali-speaking migrants have swamped the demographic equations in their favour in a number of areas across the region.”
The Bangla O Bangla Bhasha Banchao Committee president, Dr Mukunda Majumder, said they would paralyse life in the Terai-Dooars if the panel would go ahead with any survey on the ethnically sensitive matter. The Terai-Dooars Nagarik Mancha convenor, Mr Larry Bose, said  they would move to Calcutta High Court soon to stall the proceedings regarding the matter. “Any attempt to transfer tribal land is against the law of the land and unconstitutional,” he said. 
-statesman news service