Nahan, Dec 5 (PTI) Members of the Hatti community on Tuesday gave a seven-day ultimatum to the Himachal Pradesh government, demanding that tribal status be given to them, as they announced their next big protest rally in Shillai in Sirmaur district.

About 3,000 Hatti residents from 154 panchayats of Trans Giri area of the Sirmaur district gathered at the historical Chougan ground in the heart of Nahan town and marched towards the Deputy Commissioner's office to protest against the non-implementation of Hatti tribal status law.

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Carrying placards in support of the bill, the protesters raised slogans and later handed over a representation to the DC addressed to the chief minister.

Addressing the gathering, Kundan Singh Shastri, general secretary of Kendriya Hati Samiti – the community's principal organisation – gave an ultimatum to the state government to implement the Hatti tribal status law in seven days and announced that the next rally would be held in Shillai.

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Shastri said the Hatti agitation started in 1968 when the Government of India declared Jaunsar-Babur as Scheduled Tribe area, and “ignored” the people from the Trans Giri area in the same region.

After 56 years of continuous struggle, the Narendra Modi government granted tribal status to the Hatti community after fulfilling all the legal formalities, including an ethnographic survey of the community, he said.

For granting tribal status to the Hatti community, the Constitution was amended by Parliament, and on August 4 this year the President issued gazette notification in this regard, Shastri said.

“Since then, four months have passed and the state government is sitting on this notification and not implementing it," he added.

The community has written several times to the state government to implement it as Hatti youths are being deprived of their right of reservation in government jobs and all other benefits available to the Schedule Tribe community, he said.

The state government has forced the Hatti community to launch an agitation, Shastri added.

Shastri appealed Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu to immediately intervene in the matter and order Deputy Commissioner, Sirmaur to issue tribal status certificates to all Hatti youths so that they may get benefit of the reservation in the ongoing recruitment.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)