AIZAWL, Oct 10 - The Young Mizo Association, the largest and most influential organisation in Mizoram, today organised a statewide rally for abolition of the Chakma Autonomous District Council (CADC) in south Mizoram.
Thousands of people participated in the rally here, holding placards and shouting slogans. The rally was organised in major towns and villages, making it the largest rally in Mizoram in recent times.
In its general conference held at Zotlang village in Champhai district from October 17 to 19, the Young Mizo Association passed a resolution to take legal steps for the abolition of the CADC which was �constituted illegally�.
Vanlalruata, president of the central committee of the Young Mizo Association, said the CADC was �unconstitutionally� created in 1972 when Mizoram (then the Mizo Hills district of Assam) was elevated to a Union Territory, without the consent of the Mizo people.
�Chakmas are not the indigenous people of Mizoram. They originally belonged to the Chittagong Hills Tract in Bangladesh who migrated to Mizoram in the 1960s due to construction of the Kaptai dam. They were refugees who were illegally given an autonomous district council,� he said.
Vanlalruata said the statewide rally was to express the solidary of the Mizos and create public awareness. �Our next course of action will be to take legal steps. We will go to the Supreme Court,� he said.
Mizo NGOs Coordination Committee, in which the YMA is a member, has appealed to political parties not to field Chakma candidates in the Chakma-dominated Assembly seats in south Mizoram. There are two Chakma-dominated Assembly constituencies, one of which is within the CADC area.
