CoMSO to hold sit-in-protest against delay of Centre to implement ILP in Meghalaya

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJanuary 31, 2020

SHILLONG: The Confederation of Meghalaya Social Organizations (CoMSO) has announced fresh agitation by holding a five-day evening sit-in-demonstrations from February 4, to protest against the Centre’s delay to implement the Inner Line Permit (ILP) in the state.

The decision was taken at the emergency meeting of the conglomerate of 12 pro-ILP groups held in the state capital here on Friday, a day after the chief minister Conrad K Sangma met Union home minister Amit Shah on the issue.

The CoMSO has also unanimously decided to deploy its cadres to assist the Directorate of Infiltration of the state government to check influx and illegal immigration.

After the meeting, chairman of the confederation Robertjune Kharjahrin told reporters that the CoMSO has decided to continue its protest against the delay of the Centre to implement the ILP system in the state.

He said the evening sit-in-demonstrations will be held in Shillong from February 4 to 8 from 2 pm to 5 pm adding the venue for the protest will be informed later.

Kharjahrin said it has already been two months since the State Legislative Assembly had passed the resolution urging the Centre to implement the ILP in Meghalaya on December 19, last year.

However, the union home minister had not given any assurance to the chief minister (during a meeting held yesterday) that the Centre would consider the resolution even though the CM claimed to have got a positive response, he said.

He said that this is the fourth time that the Centre chooses not to respect the state government’s demand to introduce laws for protecting the interest and welfare of the indigenous people.

Kharjahrin said that the first being when the state government had passed the Residential Permit Bill in 1973 as the President of India had refused granting assent to it.

The President of India also had not granted assent to the Meghalaya Employment Bill in 1983 and the Cabinet Committee on Public Grievances’ decision to implement the three-tier identity card system in 2006 was also not approved by the Centre.

“This has made us to believe that there seems to be a conspiracy behind as the attitude of the Centre only shows that it does not want to give protection to the state and the indigenous people,” he said.

“Therefore, we have decided to first begin with peaceful protests and if the Centre continues to be adamant, we will have no other option but to intensify our agitations in the coming days,” the chairman of the confederation added.

He also announced that the CoMSO will continue to protest all official visits of central ministers to the state.

Meanwhile, the pro-ILP groups have also demanded all the 60 legislators of the state Assembly to aggressively pursue the ILP demand with the Centre.

“We do not want our legislators to be passive on this issue. All 60 MLAs should also start holding protests because we are ready to give our full support to them,” Kharjahrin said.

Stating that infiltration of illegal Bangladeshi nationals has increased ever since the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 was passed by the Centre, Kharjahrin said they have decided to assist the Directorate of Infiltration to check against such infiltrators.

“We will write to the Directorate that we are ready to assist by deploying our members in all the infiltration check gates considering the fact that the directorate is facing huge shortage of manpower,” he said.

Appealing to the citizens of the state for their support and cooperation, the chairman of the confederation said that the ILP demand is a people’s movement and the NGOs are only the organizers.