NEW DELHI: With the pro-ILP agitation lingering in the State, Shillong MP Vincent H Pala on Monday met Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to apprise him of the situation while urging the Centre to step up vigil along the porous Indo-Bangla border in order to ensure that the Hill State does not move into further turmoil and relapsing insurgency.
The pro-ILP groups have called for a fresh round of night road blockade from November 19-21 to be effective from 8 pm till 5 am of the next day in continuance of their agitation to put pressure on the state government to implement the ILP.
In a memorandum to Shinde, Pala stated that infiltration and related evils were the root cause of demands like the ILP.
“The NGOs in Meghalaya have reasons to believe that a demographic subversion is taking place at the cost of customs, culture, heritage and livelihood of the native tribes of the state due to infiltration from across the border,” Pala informed the Union Minister.
The former Union Minister also sent a copy of his memorandum to the AICC General Secretary in charge of Meghalaya, Luizinho Faleiro.
The issue of imposition of ILP in Meghalaya merits serious concern, Pala said adding that the simultaneous menace of infiltration should be effectively checked by intensifying patrolling along the international border to tackle the situation.
“Meghalaya is in severe social turmoil for the past three months over the ILP issue and NGOs, primarily student organizations, are putting pressure on the government, on the grounds that indigenous tribes are being marginalised and decimated at the hands of the infiltrators,” Pala said.
Incidentally, Shinde had reviewed the internal security situation in Meghalaya recently following reports of Garo militants getting arms from other groups and neighbouring countries. He had also expressed concern over the recent incidents of violence in which both civilians and security persons were killed along the sensitive Assam-Meghalaya border and inside Garo Hills.