Ninety days versus fourteen days : Heat on the Government
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 17 2015 -
Ninety days or three months.
This is the period that Chief Minister O Ibobi has sought for the Government to formulate a new Bill in place of the now withdrawn Manipur Regulation of Visitors, Tenants and Migrant Workers Bill.
Fourteen/fifteen days or two weeks time is the period set by the Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System for the Government to come out with the new Bill.
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and clearly the Chief Minister must be feeling the heat.
On the one hand the Chief Minister will have to ensure that any Bill that is prepared does not violate the Constitution of India and on the other he has to see to it that the demand of the people does not fall on deaf ears.
Clearly a dicey position. Just how the Government manages to walk the tightrope remains to be seen but it is also worth noting that the protest movement to secure the future of the local or indigenous people has already taken a heavy toll.
It is not only the huge number of working hours that have been lost but also the life of a young student.
The people too must be feeling the pangs over the death of Sapam Robinhood and the 12 hour general strike which Imphal witnessed on July 16 was the collective protest over the death of a young student who died in police action on July 8.
This in brief is the situation which the Government and the people find themselves in today, yet at the same time it is hard to digest that till today the Government has deemed it better to maintain a deafening silence.
The sense of loss and the grief of the parents and family members of Robinhood can only be imagined and the First Information Report which Porompat police had lodged on July 8 must have only gone to add more salt to the wounds of the parents and family members.
More than the immediate family members of the deceased student, the FIR itself is a stinging slap on all the people of Manipur.
The FIR, a copy of which is available with The Sangai Express clearly states that it was the students who courted trouble.
Moreover nothing has been written or gone on record against the police personnel who fired rubber bullets that led to the death of Sapam Robinson. This is unacceptable.
The Government should have acted a long time back. Why not announce a sort of an inquiry and pull up the cops till the inquiry report is finalised.
Moreover what stopped the Government from coming forward to share the grief and pain of the parents and family members ?
The complete silence is unacceptable and it borders more on indifference.
Lest the Government forgets, it was the death of Robinhood that gave a renewed thrust to the demand of the people and this is something which should not be overlooked at all.
One may even go to the extent of stating that it was the death of Robinhood that prompted the State Government to go ahead and withdraw the MRVTMW Bill.
Now that the Government has publicly assured that a new Bill will be prepared to take the place of the earlier Bill, one can only hope that it will go some way in addressing the issue, which is the fate of the local people.
How the new Bill is drafted is perhaps best left to Constitutional and legal experts, the people’s representatives, political parties and members of the Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System yet at the same time it should be incumbent upon all to think why numerous non-local people throng to Manipur every year.
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