Civil suit renders family homeless
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, November 02 2014: Refusal to withdraw a civil suit has rendered a family of Seikhor village, Ukhrul district homeless as the respondent and his party took the law into their own hands and demolished the house of the hapless family.

LA Wungayung and his wife LA Samila are peasants and they were toiling hard to meet the educational expenses of their son who is now studying at Delhi.

On the charge that LA Wungayung and Samila refused to withdraw a case they filed at High Court, Seikhor village chairman VS Mingthing and his cohorts demolished the house of Wungayung on September 23 last in addition to chasing out the family from their ancestral village.

Since then, the family have been living in a rented room at Ukhrul.

The couple was not allowed to lodge a complaint with the police.

Nevertheless Samila has filed a complaint with Manipur State Commission for Women (MSCW) whereas her husband has appealed to NPMHR, TNL, TNWL, TSL,TMNL and TKS to ensure that justice is done to them.

Talking to The Sangai Express, LA Samila and her husband LA Wungayung said that Wungayung's grandfather LA Sangleihao was the headman of Seikhor village from 1923 to 1963 .

After the principal function of village administration was transferred from headman to chairman who was elected for a term of three years, the village headman was rendered powerless from 1964 onward.

Nonetheless, LA Sangleihao's grandson LA Wungayung was still registered as the village headman/Touzi holder in the SDO office concerned.

But after sometime, the headman/Touzi as registered in the SDO was found replaced by one former village chairman Sanderson.

It was against this alleged manipulation of official records that LA Wungayung filed a petition at Gauhati High Court in 2011 .

LA Wungayung and his wife were asked repeatedly to withdraw the same petition time and again by incumbent village chairman VS Mingthing and his cohorts.

But the couple refused to give in to their demand which ultimately led to the demolition of their house.

All the rooms of the house including bedroom, kitchen, toilet, bathroom, store room and granary were completely destroyed when the house was demolished.

Samila said that the act of taking recourse to blatant violence just because one did not agree to withdraw a petition filed at the High Court deserved outright condemnation.

No one has the authority to render innocent women and children homeless, she added.

"After we have been rendered homeless and ousted from our ancestral village, we are in no position to send money to our son currently studying in Delhi.

Still we did not want him to know what the family has been going through lest his study is affected", Samila said.

However, he (the son) informed that he has come know everything through Facebook, conveyed the mother.

The couple further demanded reconstruction of their demolished house at their ancestral village.

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