Thaindian News

Aizawl, Oct 21 (IANS) Non-government organisations (NGOs) in Mizoram have threatened to evict Mizo women from the northeastern state if they marry non-Mizos, official said here Friday.

“The NGO Coordination Committee (NCC) has recently served eviction notices to two Mizo women at Bairabi, along Mizoram-Assam border in northern Mizoram, for marrying residents of northern India states,” Kolasib district Deputy Commissioner Niharika Rai said.

“Some of their belongings were thrown out of their homes Wednesday, in absence of their family members,” Rai said.

She added that a senior district official has visited the area Thursday and urged the NCC leaders to desist from doing so but they refused.

Mizoram’s most powerful NGO, Young Mizo Association (YMA), is the dominant body of the NCC and they insist on traditional practices.

YMA leader and NCC spokesman C. Lalbiakenga told reporters that the NGOs had earlier adopted a resolution that any village girl marrying a non-tribal should live with her husband, where the latter belonged.

The Kolasib deputy commissioner told the NGOs that they had no authority to evict the women and appealed to them not to take the law into their hands.

“The NCC, however, rejected the appeal, saying they would take steps for the good of Mizo society,” she said.

Most local political parties of Mizoram have also supported the NCC move.

Bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh, mountainous Mizoram, having a literacy rate of 91.58 percent as per the 2011 census, is traditionally a patriarchal society.