NONGSTOIN: The trouble-torn village of Langpih along the Meghalaya-Assam border is yet again in the news with hundreds of Nepali coal workers along with their families making the village their new home after having quit the coal mines of Shallang and Borsora.
Residents of Langpih informed this scribe that with the NGT ban on coal mining in Meghalaya, many Nepali coal workers have allegedly landed at Langpih to try their hands at cultivation and are allegedly encroaching in the land belonging to Khasi residents.
Sources from the village also informed that new thatch huts were being constructed at Langpih and Umwali which has been renamed as Harshanagar by the Nepali encroachers.
The sources informed that as many as five bamboo huts had recently been erected at Langpih.
Earlier, it was reported that in Domtiehsaw village, around 6-7 km from Langpih, some incomplete bamboo huts had been erected by illegal settlers on a plot of land which was allegedly being used as a Catholic cemetery by the Khasis.
In 2013, Khasi and Nepali residents of the area had reached an understanding that the Nepalese residents of Umtap village would leave the village where they had been illegally settled, but even after a year, the settlers have not vacated the land and have even constructed new dwelling houses.
The Khasi residents of Langpih have asked the State Government to take immediate and necessary steps to contain the illegal settlers to avoid any untoward incident in future.
