Kathmandu, December 21:

A representative of the freed Kamaiyas announced here today that hundreds of freed Kamaiyas will swarm the capital on Monday, gherao Singhadurbar and capture public land in the capital.

Though they were freed six years ago, over 30,000 freed Kamaiyas (bonded labourers) of the western terai are still without home and hearth.

Successive governments have simply been unable to rehabilitate them.

Pashupati Chaudhari, the chairman of the Freed Kamaiya Society, told a press conference here that four or five freed Kamaiyas from each of hundreds of temporary Kamaiya settlements will come to the capital. Freed Kamaiyas will also hamper work at the District Land Reforms Offices, the District Forest Offices and District Development Offices of Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, Kanchanpur and Dang.

Chaudhari also demanded the representation of freed Kamaiyas in the Freed Kamaiya Rehabilitation Central Committee and Directory Committee for Resolution of Freed Kamaiya Problems.

Prakash Jwala, a lawmaker from the UML and member of the Natural Resources Committee in the House of Representatives, said the state seems to be ignoring the Kamaiyas’ right to shelter.

He said that Kamaiyas might have to launch an agitation to get their voices heard.

“The then government declared the Kamaiyas free without doing homework,” he said, adding that genuine issues of the Kamaiyas have not been addressed.

The committee is ready to mediate between the government and the victims to sort out the latters’ problems, he said.

Terming the then government’s decision to free the Kamaiyas a wise one, Siddha Raj Ojha, a former minister for land reforms, said the decision was not implemented properly.

He said the government did not keep the promises it made to the freed Kamaiyas.

Minister for Land Reforms Prabhu Narayan Chaudhary accused the associations of freed Kamaiyas of not allowing the government staffers to continue their work aimed at rehabilitating the Kamaiyas. He accused the associations of politicking in the name of freed Kamaiyas.

“There are some elements which do not want the resolution of problems facing the freed Kamaiyas,” he said.

Reality-check:

• 32,000 freed Kamaiyas in Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, Kanchanpur and Dang districts

• 19,000-plus deprived of government facilities

• 10,000 yet to get land

• 5,032 have insufficient land

• 4,000 have received land ownership certificates, not land

• 3,000 freed Kamaiyas not documented