Govt Yet to Address The Problem as Refugee Increasing in Panisagar
- By Thetripurapost Desk, Panisagar
- May 15, 2024
- 120
Refugees have started trickling down to Panisagar under North Tripura District. All of them rushed out of various places of Kanchanpur in the hope of getting some relief and started taking shelter in Pekuchhara by pitching tents on forest department land.
According to the report there were only 15 families on the first day, Saturday, followed by 27 families on Sunday, 51 families on Monday and about 85 families camped in the area on Tuesday.
However, among these families who came to Pekuchhara, some families are from Panisagar. Every family that takes shelter here has to spend their days in very difficult conditions.
Almost four days have passed but the refugee families have not yet received any administrative resettlement arrangements.
Rather, it is reported that the forest department is constantly treating inhumanly. As the lrefugee families said, they were suffering from acute shortage of drinking water since Saturday.
It is alleged that the forest department staff stopped them from entering the area with drinking water by e-rickshaws to meet the drinking water crisis. Later, the forest department staff moved away due to the collective protest of the refugee families. Not only that, the refugee families are currently living in this deep jungle overlooking the mosquito, rain, dark of night.
Children, elderly people are spending the night in this difficult situation. However, no decision has yet been reached administratively. The refugee families say that no help is being provided by the government yet. Instead, they are repeatedly threatened to leave the place.
They also said that many family members have fallen ill due to sleeplessness day and night due to this incident. As time goes by the situation becomes more difficult. The same fear is running through them that when the forest department personnel will come and tear down their tents again.
Among them there are many families with only eight-month-old babies in their arms and many families with small children. There are also about 80 elderly people among them.
Subudh Shill, an elderly man said that he fell ill due to no sleep for three nights. It is also learned that there are many families in this vast area of the forest department who have been staying in the land of the forest department for many years. It is even known that many tribal families are living in another place of the forest department a little away from this site.
Therefore, these refugee families from different parts of Kanchanpur and Panisagar demand that the forest department is creating such pressure on them all though other families are staying in this place day after day. The refugee families also said that many of them once lived in the areas of Naishingpara, Asharam Bari, Gachiram Para of Kanchanpur subdivision. Later, when Reang refugees from Mizoram came to those areas, they had to leave these places and settle in other places of Kanchanpur due to various reasons.
There too, they faced various problems and were forced to leave Kanchanpur, where they had lived for a long time.
Meanwhile, DFO and SDFO of Forest Department visited the entire area on Tuesday morning. They came and inspected the entire area and left. They did not speak to any refugee family on Tuesday.