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Freed Kamaiyas call off strike

Freed Kamaiyas (bonded labourers) have agreed to end their strike after an agreement with the government.

Pashupati Choudhary, chairman of Freed Kamaiya Society, said the protest programmes were withdrawn after an 8-point agreement today with the government in the talks facilitated by the Natural Resources Committee of the parliament.

The government has agreed to repeal the concept of Land Bank and involve representatives of the Society in the Freed Kamaiya Resettlement Committee, he said. Land reform minister Prabhu Narayan Choudhary, parliamentary Natural Resources Committee chairman Prakash Jwala and Society’s Chourdhary signed the agreement.

The government and the Society had started negotiations from Monday with an aim to end the ongoing protest of former Kamaiyas in Kathmandu. The former Kamaiyas who were liberated four years ago have been demanding proper resettlement and support for their livelihood.

To pressure the government, hundreds of Kamiayas from Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, Kanchanpur and Dang arrived in Kathmandu on Saturday and set up camps on a public land at Teenkune.

There are over 35,000 freed Kamaiyas and majority of them are yet to get the land promised by the government. The then Sher Bahadur Deuba government had abolished the Kamaiya system in 2002, promising them proper resettlement along with land plots for farming. nepalnews.com mk Jan 04 07