Detaining two more at Jiribam : Need to always stay alert
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: November 08 2018 -

The recent report of Jiribam police detecting and detaining two Rohingya women, while they were headed to Imphal should be taken with all the seriousness it deserves.

It is not merely about two women being detected and detained, but points to a movement of foreigners into the soil of Manipur for which there could be a pattern.

This observation gains credence in the backdrop of the fact this is not the first time that Rohingyas have been detected moving into Manipur.

This may not be the last either.

It is not yet clear whether Jiribam police have been able to make any headway in the investigation of the case but it is more than likely that they were headed towards an already marked address in Manipur.

Who was supposed to receive them at Imphal or beyond ?

Juxtapose this poser with the fact that quite a number of local people have been found liaising with the foreigners to help them enter Manipur earlier and such a design continuing to this day cannot be ruled out at all.

That this should happen when the local people have taken up the slogan to check the influx of non-locals into the State is what makes it all that more serious.

The Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System may be lying low for the time being, given that the State Assembly has already passed the Manipur People Bill and the said Bill is awaiting the President’s assent.

But to say that they have ‘retired’ would be stretching things too far. If at this critical time, foreigners, Rohingyas to be precise, are being smuggled into the State, it makes it all that more serious and anti-people.

It is against this reality that the vigil at the border areas should carry on strictly.

For every one news that come to the public domain of Rohingyas being intercepted at the border area, there could be many more such cases, when the refugees came in undetected.

And it stands that in any case of human conflict, it is mostly always about between the original inhabitants and the migrants who come later in the day.

It is also not impossible for the non-locals such as the Rohingyas to outnumber the local people in due course of time and this is the question which the local people who have been involved in smuggling them in should question themselves.

This is where the sharp vigil of the people is called for.

Let all join hands in detecting the entry of foreigners into the soil of Manipur.

At the moment, the police seem to be doing a good job at the border areas, such as Jiribam, Mao Gate and Moreh to keep the foreigners at bay, and the question is, what can the people do to make policing more effective at the entry points of Manipur.

As stated many times in this column, let the local people develop a sense of labour and stop creating the vacuum to draw the others in.

As long as vacuum remains in the job market, there will be others who will rush in to fill the vacuum.

The Sangai Express has for long been echoing this line of thought. It is the local people who first created the vacuum.

Let this realisation dawn on everyone and let there be some concerted campaigns to educate the people on the dignity of labour.