By Our Correspondent
KOHIMA/NEW DELHI: The All India Chakma Students Union (AICSU) on Friday requested Union Home Minister Amit Shah who is visiting Mizoram on 5th October to address the torture of Chakma students in the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs) in Mizoram.
“All the 34 Chakma students, including 9 girls fled from the hostel of JNV Thenzawl in Serchhip District to their homes on 3 October 2019 due to the lack of security, intimidation and threats of torture from the Mizo students following brutal torture of Class XII student Nolin Bikash Chakma by Mizo students with iron rods at the hostel on 26 September 2019. Of them, 17 belonged to Lawngtlai District and 17 are from Mamit District.” –stated Tejang Chakma, Vice President of the AICSU.
The torture of Chakma students in the JNVs is regular and in 1997, the JNV authorities had to shift all the Chakma students (43 students) to JNV at Mou Gate in Senapati District of Manipur after brutal incidents of torture and harassment of Chakma students at JNV hostel at Hrangchalkawn in Lunglei District, Mizoram.
“There is an immediate need to end such torture in the educational institutions and create conducive atmosphere for return of all the 34 Chakma students studying at JNV Thenzawl. Unless the Home Minister of India ensures safe and secure environment inside the school premises run by the Central government, it shall be a failure of the Government of India to secure the future of its children.” – further stated Chakma in a memorandum to Shah.
The AICSU demanded establishment of two new JNVs respectively at Marpara in Lunglei District and Kamalanagar in Chakma Autonomous District Council at the earliest so that minority students can study in peace.
The Chakmas are indigenous peoples of Mizoram and in the year 1898, a portion of then Chittagong Hill Tracts covering the current Western belt of Mizoram inhabited by the Chakmas was included to the Lushai Hills which were later on made part of Assam by the British. As per 1951 census, the population of the Chakmas was 15,897 in the Lushai Hills. The Chakmas were accorded “Chakma Autonomous District Council” under the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution of India in 1972.
However, the Chakmas are often vilified as foreigners in Mizoram while majority Mizos seldom raise the presence of over 1,00,000 Chins from Myanmar which was about 20 percent of the total Chin population in Chin State of Myanmar. The Chins had fled following the repression in Myanmar and Chin refugees were housed in the camps at Champai which were dismantled to naturalise them in Mizoram. India never officially repatriated any Chin to Myanmar.
For more details on the Chin refugees, please refer to the report, “We Are Like Forgotten People”, published by Human Rights Watch in January 2009 and it can be accessed at
