Stall eviction drive: MP Sanajaoba
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, September 04 2025: MP Leishemba Sanajaoba has written to Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla, urging the latter to pause any eviction process in Leimakhongmapal, Chonthaba village until thorough verification is conducted.

Indigenous residents of Leimakhongmapal, Chonthaba village under Lamlai police station in Imphal East have peacefully inhabited their ancestral homesteads for generations well before Manipur's merger with the Union of India.

Now these families are facing the risk of being evicted due to lack of formal land titles, said the MP in the letter.

Though these residents have been consistently listed in the electoral rolls and possess ration cards under the NFSA, the land occupied by these families lacks formal Patta (Jamabandi) documents, largely due to historical administrative oversight and lack of legal awareness among their forebears.

While their possession is long-standing, peaceful and uncontested, the absence of formal land title has now placed the land they have long called home under the threat of current eviction drive targeting un-regularised land holdings, said the MP.

Under Section 14 of the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960, there is provision for allotment of Government land to landless persons or those without homestead land.

Considering the ongoing socioeconomic hardship since the crisis of May 3, 2023, evicting these families would cause undue suffering and displacement at a time of already heightened vulnerability, said the MP, urging the Governor to pause any eviction process in Leimakhongmapal, Chonthaba until thorough verification is conducted.

He also urged the Governor to facilitate regularisation or allotment of the land occupied by the affected families under existing legal provisions.

In cases requiring displacement for public purposes, ensure alternative homestead plots are provided within the village or nearby areas, said the MP in the letter to the Governor.

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