Dhaka, Aug 7 (bdnews24.com) – The law minister has alleged that the members of Chittagong Hill Tracts Land Commission are not cooperating with the body to ease land disputes in the region.
"Members of the small ethnic groups do not show up in the meetings called by its chairman. Thus the disputes are not getting settled," Shafique Ahmed said on Sunday speaking at the National Conference on Land, Forest and Cultural Rights of Indigenous People in the city.
Committee member Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma or Santu Larma, who was also present at the conference, however, said that there was no use attending the meetings "unless the laws are revised".
The much-awaited commission was set up in 1999, two years after the CHT Peace Accord was signed. However, it had been non-functional since May due to complications over applications for resolving land disputes and the land survey issue.
A recent UN report states that the commission was lagging owing to a number of controversial decisions taken by its chairman, former justice Khademul Islam Chowdhury, who initiated the land survey to end the disputes.
The long-awaited survey is meant for verifying the claims of hill people who had fled to India during the decades of strife. They returned home after the signing of the peace accord in 1997.
State minister for CHT affairs Dipankar Talukdar on June 24 said that the Land Commission would resume work with full force after amendments are made to some necessary laws.
"The Land Commission Act has been modified and sent to the law ministry. After the cabinet's approval, it'll be placed in parliament," he had said.
Shafique at the programme said that since only one member, the chairman, was the lone Bangalee in the commission, they should have come forward. "Or else, how will it be solved?"
Santu, also chief of the CHT Regional Council, in his speech said how the government was ignoring the revision proposals put forth by them.
The minister intercepted and asked Santu why the commission chairman was not told about the objections.
"It's not the jurisdiction of the [commission] chairman. The government has to consider it sincerely, or else the disputes won't go," said Santu, head of Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity, one of the parties in the 1997 Peace Accord.
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