HYC points at loopholes in Residents Safety Rules

SHILLONG: The Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Rules, which the State Government announced a week ago, have loopholes and Inner Line Permit is the only way to check influx of illegal immigrants, said the Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC) on Friday.
Addressing a press conference on Friday while releasing a concept note titled ‘Save Hynniewtrep Mission’, the group’s general secretary Robert June Kharjahrin said the rules deviate from the Act.
“If anyone challenges the rule of the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act, it might be declared as null and void as the rules have deviated from the Act,” he said.
The group also slammed the Government over the Act being silent on penalising or detaining those people who will enter Meghalaya not through the entry and exit points but from different channels.
Kharjahrin also expressed his confidence that even the 13 pressure groups who are demanding proper mechanism to check influx will not accept the rule notified by the government.
On the regulation of tenants, the HYC leader said the rule does not differentiate who is an indigenous tenant or an immigrant tenant as both have to follow the same procedure.
“If this rule is implemented than even indigenous people will be considered as immigrants,” he said and added that the group’s concept note would soon be distributed to different Himas, Dorbar and villages.
Stating that tenants will have to produce their documents only after staying in the rented house as per the Act, he said, “How will the government check immigration when the person is already a resident and they will later produce their documents.”