They sought to amend the government’s 40-year lease agreement with the tea gardens to free the land claimed by the Khasia community
Staff Correspondent
Fourteen prominent individuals from 13 organizations issued a joint statement on Sunday urging the relevant authorities to stop cutting trees in the name of expanding the tea garden in Moulvibazar’s Jhimai Punji, the home of the Khasia community. The tea-garden authorities have recently taken the initiative to cut down at least 2096 trees belonging to the Khasia community in Jhimai Punji land. Among these, several trees are ancient and if these trees are cut down, it will cause irreparable damage to the environment and wildlife, the joint statement said.
Besides, the Khasia community will lose its livelihood, the statement added.
The joint statement was signed by Sultana Kamal, Khushi Kabir, Dr Iftekharuzzaman, ZI Khan Panna, Shamsul Huda, Md Nur Khan, Zakir Hossain, SM Rezaul Karim, Sanjeeb Drong and Syeda Rizwana Hasan, among others.
The eminent citizens, in their statement, also claimed that cutting immature trees in Jhimai Punji had been banned by the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division.
The court further ruled that only mature and ancient trees may be cut down with the approval of the local forest and environment office, and only after planting two additional trees of the same kind to replace those that are fallen, they said.
Therefore, the initiative undertaken by the Jhimai tea garden authorities to kill mature, ancient and immature trees in the name of expanding the tea garden is in violation of the court order and against the existing laws of the country, they added.
They sought to amend the government’s 40-year lease agreement with the tea gardens to free the land claimed by the Khasia community, which would safeguard 72 Khasi households’ access to land, water, mobility, and a means of subsistence, as well as the retraction of fabricated charges brought against them.
At the same time, they demanded the declaration of the land of Jhimai Punji as a “Community Conservation Area” under Section 18 of the Wildlife (Preservation and Security) Act, 2012.
About 500 people of 72 Khasia families have been living in Jhimai Punji in Kulaura upazila of Moulvibazar for generations. For more than 100 years, the Khasia community has been living on this 406 acres of land.

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