NRC: Meghalaya students sets up check points to question travellers about citizenship status
New Delhi : The final draft list of NRC (National Register of Citizens) published in July 30 has created a little chaos across the nation. While Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal has raised the issue of illegal immigrants on the parliament, students union in various parts of Meghalaya are stopping travellers from Assam to interrogate them about their citizenship status. The video, apparently shot in some areas shows how Khasi Students have set up check post to question travellers on the way to Guwahati.
As per the final NRC draft list, over 40 lakh people among the 3.29 crore have failed to find their names in the draft. The next day onwards, the Khasi Students’ Union set up “check gates” at several places along Meghalaya’s border with Assam to put a stop to the “mass exodus of the 40,00,000 people” to the state, said the union’s general secretary, Donald V Thabah. KSU check points were established in the East Jaintia Hills district, West Khasi Hills district and in Ri-Bhoi district, Thabah said.
Travellers from Assam going from the Barak Valley district to the capital Guwahati has to cross the neighbouring state of Meghalaya. According to Thabah, the student union detected more than 1,500 alleged undocumented migrants in vehicles coming from Assam. He claimed the district administration and state police are also involved in the process.
When the union was asked how they come to the conclusion that the people they had detained were undocumented migrants, Thabah said they did not have the “necessary documents”. He said, “We pushed them all back with the help of the police and the district administration. There was no law and order situation.”
Owning to the situation, Lok Sabha MP from Silchar, Assam, Sushmita Dev wrote to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh pointing out that since the publication of the Register of Citizens, the Meghalaya Police, with the help of the Khasi Students’ Union, were stopping her people from Cachar district from entering Meghalaya. The Congress leader also accused the students of harassing the travellers.
