JCILPS pledges to renew agitation
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, September 11 2022:
The Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System (JCILPS) has vowed to renew different forms of mass agitation until the Government takes up concrete and effective measures to protect the indigenous people of Manipur including adoption of 1951 as the base year for identification of non-local people and updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) with respect to Manipur with 1951 as base year.
The JCILPS performed Langban Heisoi Tamba ceremony at the Yelhoumee Athoubasinggi Ningshing Khubam, Awaching in honour of Sapam Robinhood and other martyrs who laid down their lives for the cause of Manipur.
Speaking to media persons by the sideline of the ceremony, JCILPS convenor Phulindro Konsam said that a floodgate of influx was opened after the then Chief Commissioner Himat Singh withdrew Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) from Manipur in 1950 .
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As the influx continued unabated over the decades, the indigenous people and their identity came under serious threats.
Taking serious note of the unfolding situation, JCILPS and student organisations have been urging the State Government to implement an effective ILP System, send back non-local people and take up necessary measures which can effectively protect the indigenous people, their identity, culture and other values, Phulindro said.
Even as the JCILPS and the people were demanding an enactment which could protect the indigenous people, the State Government came up with two Bills in 2015 which tended to support non-local people instead of protecting the indigenous people.
The two Bills aggrieved the people so much that the State witnessed massive protest movement.
As the people and students launched intensified agitation, the State responded by unleashing brute force.
Sapam Robinhood, then reading in Class XI at Ananda Singh Higher Secondary Academy was killed when he was shot with rubber bullets on July 8, 2015, Phulindro recalled.
It was only in 2019 that the ILP System was introduced in Manipur.
But the ILP System currently implemented in the State is devoid of any substance and as such, it is unable to check influx of non-local people into the State, the JCILPS convenor said.
Pointing out that the ILP System has no provision for identification of non-local people and many other necessary provisions are absent, Phulindro reiterated the demand to adopt 1951 as the base year for identification of non-local people.
Noting that the State Cabinet adopted a resolution in July this year to adopt 1961 as the base year for identification of non-local people, the convenor said that they have already raised strong objections to the Cabinet decision.
Moreover, a memorandum was submitted to the Government demanding adoption of 1951 as the base year, updating of the NRC with 1951 as the base year and establishment of Manipur Population Commission.
Decrying that the Government has not yet translated any one of the demands highlighted in the memorandum into action, Phulindro said that they would carry on different modes of mass agitation until their demands are fulfilled.
He also appealed to the people for support.
Representatives of different CSOs took part in the Langban Heisoi Tamba ceremony.