Police conducts checking on labour license, KSU question govt’s failure to implement MRSSA

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJune 25, 2024

Police of the Anti-Infiltration Directorate on Monday conducted a checking drive on migrant workers at Nongmensong and Mawpat area.

Migrant workers, who mostly are from neighbouring Assam, at the construction sites, were asked to produce documents such as labour license, Aadhaar and EPIC.

Sources informed that 15 were found without any valid documents during the checking.

The directorate officials have warned that migrant workers without any valid documents will be sent back to their state.

While lauding the efforts of the directorate to detect illegal migrant workers, the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) said that checking without asking for a work permit will be a futile exercise because this law seeks to prevent labourers from settling in the state.

“Therefore, we urged the anti-infiltration directorate to ask migrant workers and contractors, who are engaging them, to produce their work permit failing which they should be sent back or punished as per law of the land,” KSU general secretary Donald V Thabah said in a statement.

On the other hand, Thabah said the KSU would also like to question the state government on the fate of the Meghalaya Residents Safety & Security Act (MRSSA) 2016.

“What is holding the government back from implementing the MRSSA when the Centre through the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had returned the same to the state government,” he asked.

Further, the KSU leader said that the union would find out the reason before taking a decision to pressure the government for its immediate implementation.

“The KSU would also like to remind the MDA government, less it forgets, the need to aggressively pursue with the NDA government on the pending demands for implementation of ILP, inclusion of Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule and others,” he added.