STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Despite not being able to dispose of a single land-related complaint since its creation two decades ago, the CHT Land Commission postponed its meeting on September 7 citing opposition to it.

There are at least 26,000 applications of land-related conflicts -- filed over 21 years -- pending to be resolved with the CHT Land Commission since the dispute resolution body was created in 1997 during the CHT Peace Treaty.

In this context, a pre-fixed meeting of the commission was set to be held on September 7.

The meeting was postponed after an organisation called Parbatya Chattagram Nagorik Parishad, a platform of the newly settled Bangalees in CHT, called a 32-hour hartal and burned rubber tyres on the street demanding the cancellation of the meeting.

Meanwhile, a statement signed by 32 eminent citizens circulated yesterday decried the commission’s decision to postpone the meeting, calling it a violation of the CHT Peace Treaty.

“Land conflicts have intensified communal attacks upon indigenous villages, led to harassment of indigenous women, abduction of villagers, and pushed them into an overall state of insecurity,” said the statement.

“Even though the CHT region has more deployment of security forces than any other place in the country, the lack of security is only increasing day by day,” it added.

They demanded that the land commission be activated so that they can resolve all the undisposed land-related complaints.