They have also demanded that New Delhi should consult with village headmen and chieftains of the indigenous communities while settling the border row with Dhaka.
The Khasi Students' Union (KSU) and Federation of Khasi, Jaintia and Garo People (FKJGP) of Meghalaya urged the Indian government to urgently all necessary steps to settle the border disputes with Bangladesh.
A delegation of the KSU and FKJGP recently called on the Indian home minister P Chidambaram in New Delhi. The leaders of the two organisations requested Chidambaram to ensure that a fresh joint survey of Bangladesh-India border leads to settlement of the border disputes and recovery of the pieces of land that they claimed as traditionally owned by the tribal communities of Meghalaya but currently on the other side of the border.
Indian government's minister of state for water resources Vincent H Pala, who is also from Meghalaya, joined the delegation that called on Chidambaram.
"There is an urgent need for early settlement of our boundary with Bangladesh by conducting joint survey between India and Bangladesh in presence of traditional headmen to identify ancestral and valuable cultivable land," the KSU and FKJGP stated in a memorandum submitted to the Indian Home Minister.
Of the 4096 kilometer long border between Bangladesh and India; Meghalaya has a stretch of 443 kilometers. The tiny State is just adjacent to Sylhet and inhabited by three matrilineal tribes – Khasi, Garo and Jaintia.
While the KSU is a student body of the dominant Khasi tribe of Meghalaya; the FKJGP is a conglomerate of the organizations representing all the three tribes of the State.
The KSU chief Hamlet Dohling alleged that when the Indian Government in mid 1950s started demarcation of the border with the then Government of Pakistan; the local tribal chieftains and village headmen had not been consulted and, as a result, local tribal communities had lost large chunks of their cultivable land.
Dohling and FKJGP president Emlang Lyttan led the delegation that met the Indian Home Minister.
Lyttan said that the KSU and FKJGP delegation submitted to Chidambaram some sample documents dating back to 1950s in support of the tribal communities' claim on the pieces of land now in Bangladesh.
He added that the village chieftains and tribal heads of the State still had many such documents to support their claim on land currently on the other side of the border.
Chidambaram is understood to have assured the delegation that the Indian Government would consider its demand for taking the tribal leaders of Meghalaya into confidence while making efforts to settle the border disputes with Bangladesh.
There are several disputed stretches along the Bangladesh-India border in Meghalaya, with 11 adverse possessions being at the centre of the row.
The State witnessed several fire-exchanges between Bangladesh Rifles and India's Border Security Force triggered by conflicting perceptions about the border, including the bloody skirmish at Padua in 2001.
Dhaka and Delhi are expected to hold a meeting of the Joint Working Group on land boundary soon to settle the border disputes.
During prime minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to Delhi in January this year, Bangladesh and India agreed "to comprehensively address all outstanding land boundary issues keeping in view the spirit of the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement."
Hasina and her Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh agreed to "convene the Joint Boundary Working Group to take the process forward."