Easter Sunday this year will hardly bring any joy for 50 Indigenous families in Srimangal upazila as the owner of an adjacent tea garden allegedly damaged their fruit orchards, their only earning sources, and is harassing them in a bid to grab their ancestral properties.

During a recent visit to Lakhai Dotto Bosti area, this correspondent saw panicked villagers passing their days in fear ahead of the Easter Sunday.

Luis Kondo, 54, head of a six-member family, said, “My kids demanded new dresses on the occasion, but I am unable to buy any this year.”

Otit Alfred Kondo, 55, who also maintains a six-member family, said armed men of owner of Julekha Nagar Tea Estate destroyed his entire lemon and pineapple plantation as he refused to sell the land to the tea garden owner.

“Where I have no money for proper treatment, how can we celebrate the Easter Sunday this year,” Alfred added.

Another villager Joltu Kanda, 54, said they had been living on their land for generations but never faced such eviction threat before.

Like Alfred and Joltu, some 50 families of indigenous Kanda and Tanti community in Lakhai Dotto Bosti, are facing constant threat of eviction and harassment by the men of the tea garden owner.

Father Kiron Rosario, a local priest, said he has been helping the poor indigenous people to resist the eviction move for years.

In the last couple of years, around 16,000 lemon trees, 8,00,000 pineapples, 3,700 banana, 1,200 papaya, 200 guava, 750 jackfruit, 1,200 betel leaf, 37,000 Naga Chilli,  800 betel nut, 2,000 wooden trees, 8,000 bamboo and 400 local varieties of fruit trees have been damaged by the tea garden owner.

Syeda Gulshan Ara, owner of Syed Tea and Land Company Ltd and Julekhanagar Tea Estate, rejected the allegation and said it was the indigenous people who attacked her men on several occasions.

Salauddin Ahmed, president of Pahar Rokkha O Unnayan Society, demanded proper investigation and punishment of the culprits involved in torturing the indigenous people and destroying the greens.

Local Kalighat Union Parishad Chairman Pranesh Goala said he raised the issue in the upazila law and order meeting several times and urged the authorities concerned to ensure the security of the indigenous people but got no response.