HSDP Dima Hasao district president Suraj Naiding said members of the party from across the district will join the hunger strike in front of the office of the deputy commissioner at Haflong, the headquarters of the district.
"We are unhappy with the way both the Centre and the state government have been dealing with the longstanding demand for an autonomous state for Dima Hasao and Karbi Anglong under the provisions of the 6th Schedule of the Indian Constitution," said Naiding. He said if the authorities fail to respond to the 36-hour hunger strike, the HSDP will go in for a bigger agitation programme.
Over the past months, the HSDP has observed bandhs and strikes on several occasions for an autonomous state within the geographical area of Assam.
On the other hand, the Silchar-Lumding Broad Gauge Implementation Action Committee has called a 12-hour Barak Valley bandh on September 24 seeking immediate completion of the 201-km broad gauge. The fate of the project has been hanging in balance for the last 17 years.
The committee said the national project, the foundation for which was laid way back in 1996, has failed the deadline of completion at least five times over the years. Now, the department of railways has announced a fresh timeframe of 2015 for completion of the project. "However, people of the region have lost faith in such promises and they are afraid that the project may not see the light of the day even by 2020," said a spokesman of the committee.
He said the people of south Assam, Mizoram, Tripura and parts of Manipur have been suffering a lot due to the transhipment system at Lumding during the course of journey by train to reach Guwahati and beyond only because of inordinate delay in completion of the broad gauge project.