SHILLONG: Passage of the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha last month has given impetus to the demand for implementation of Inner Line Permit (ILP) in the state.
NESO chairman Samuel Jyrwa told The Shillong Times on Tuesday that implementation of ILP has been the core demand of the organisation for long.
He felt that the ILP should be implemented in all the Northeastern states even as he maintained that right now, the main priority of the organisation is to ensure that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill does not see the light of the day.
It may be recalled that the state had witnessed a series of protests back in 2014 when a conglomerate of NGOs had demanded implementation of ILP in the state.
The violence left three people dead in Shillong besides several cases of arson.
Following the issue, the then Mukul Sangma government agreed to set up a comprehensive mechanism to check influx and started the process of setting up entry and exit points.
However, several years down the line, the entry and exit points are still awaiting land for which the acquisition process is underway.
Ever since, NGOs from time to time have demanded ILP in the state.
However, the demand gained momentum after the Lok Sabha passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill despite stiff opposition from the people of the North East as it seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
The KHADC led by its CEM, HS Shylla, had even passed the KHAD (Inner Line as adapted from the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation 1873) Regulation, 2018 to implement the ILP system to curb influx in scheduled areas.
However, the state government has maintained that the regulation passed by the district council on October 26, 2019 is outside its legislative competency as it does not fall under any of the law making powers as provided under the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution of India.
The UDP, an ally in the MDA government, has also asked the state government to seriously consider implementation of ILP in the state following the Centre’s determined move to get the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill passed in Rajya Sabha.
Meanwhile, following the issue of the CAB, personnel of the infiltration department now-a-days ask for identity cards of every single person entering Meghalaya in vehicles which was not the case earlier.
