SHILLONG: 'Modified' Inner Line Permit (ILP) is on the offing in Meghalaya.
In a crucial meeting between the Mukul Sangma government and the agitating 13 organisations of Meghalaya today, it was agreed that a 'modified Inner Line Permit' is likely to be implemented in Meghalaya.
The 13 pressure groups have submitted a lengthy suggestion in 6 full pages to the government during the meeting today. The Meghalaya government will study the suggestion of the pressure groups and call another meeting. "A mechanism will be formulated which will be better than the Inner Line Permit (ILP)," said a minister after the meeting.
Since December 17 last year, the civil society organisations of Meghalaya have been lying low after they had relaxed their agitations in view of Christmas season.
There are altogether 13 organisations speaheading the movement for the implementation of the ILP in Meghalaya. Promiment bodies among them are Khasi Students Union (KSU), FKJGP, HNYF, Garo Students Union (GSU), JSSU, CSWO, KWWADA, ADE and RBYF. The series of agitations began after the break-down of the August 29, 2013 talk between the Mukul Sangma government and the NGOs in Shillong.
The KSU and other 12 organisations are spearheading the demand for immediate implementation of their demand that ought to be incorporated in the existing Eastern Bengal Frontier Regulation Act, 1873 to tackle and prevent inflow of illegal influx into the state.
It may be mentioned here that a series of agitations programmes from bandhs, office picketing and road blockades have been sponsored by the groups for the past three months pressurizing the state government to implement the ILP system which was as per the recommendation of the High Level Committee on Influx headed by the then Deputy Chief Minister Bindo M Lanong.
However, the state government had rejected the ILP outright citing that it is not effective enough to address the problem of influx and had instead proposed to introduce the Meghalaya Regulation of Landlords and Verification of Tenants Bill which the public consultations on the draft is still on the process.
The NGOs had also vowed to take the movement for demanding the implementation of the Eastern Bengal Frontier Regulation Act, 1873 which is a strong and effective law that can prevent illegal influx from entering the state to its logical end.
Also, during the agitations last year, two lives were claimed and about 71 pro-ILP activists were arrested in connection with the 86 cases related to arsons and others besides murder. While majority of them were booked under Meghalaya Maintenance of Public Order (MMPO) Act, few were detained under the Meghalaya Prevention of Detention Act (MPDA).
'Indigenous people of Sikkim & Tripura becoming minorities'
SHILLONG, APRIL 29 (PTI): Claiming that indigenous people in Sikkim and Tripura were being reduced to minorities, pro-Inner Line Permit groups today said Meghalaya should learn from the condition of the two states. "Sikkim and Tripura are glaring cases in point where the local indigenous people are being overwhelmed and their socio-economic and political interests have become critical," Federation of Khasi Jaintia and Garo People (FKJGP) president Joe Marwein said in a presentation to Chief Minister Mukul Sangma here. "There was an urgent need for a comprehensive mechanism to regulate influx into the state in line with the spirit of the 1873-legislated Eastern Bengal Frontier Regulation Act which was the basis of the ILP," he said.
Maintaining that as the ILP was not implementable in the state on legal grounds, the Chief Minister said, "We have from time to time reiterated the need to come up with an alternate comprehensive mechanism which the NGOs today demonstrated by structuring these proposals. "The proposals have been structured in a manner which can be perceived as implementable," he said, adding that it was now up to the state government to give shape to it so that it could be implemented legally.
