Thursday, June 04, 2009

Chakmas face discrimination in Mizoram

Aizawl, June 1, 2009 (ACHR): According to the ACHR report, the state government has failed to provide Chakmas access to basic health care facilities. Most villages had no health care facilities at all and the poor villagers lived at the mercy of Badya (traditional herbal doctors), Deaths of children were often not recorded. This was stated in a press release.

A regional human rights watchdog, the Asian Centre for Human Rights in its report “2009 India Human Rights Report,” released in New Delhi on Friday, accused Mizoram of practicing ‘systematic discrimination’ against minorities.

The ACHR stated that minorities were denied employment, basic health care, education and right to development.

The state government has failed to “address systematic discrimination against minorities – ethnic, linguistic and religious,” the report added.

The ACHR alleged that Chakma minorities who live outside the Chakma Autonomous District Council have to face “more discrimination and neglect.” Majority Chakmas live on the border with Bangladesh and the Central funds for the development of the border areas under the Border Area Development Programme have been misused.

The report claimed the Ministry of Home Affairs released Rs 1,556 lakh during 2004-05, Rs 903.48 lakh during 2005-06, Rs 2,262 lakh during 2006-07 and Rs 2,086 lakh during 2007-08, to Mizoram under BADP.

But the ACHR team during its visit to the border areas “found very limited evidence of development activities.”

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