Keeping tight vigil at border areas : Connivance of locals
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: May 26 2018 -
Frightening if not exactly alarming.
What has made the situation all that more disturbing is the active connivance of some local elements in smuggling in the Rohingya Muslims from across the border and elsewhere and the fake Aadhaar cards issued to them with local names.
This has to stop.
The very act of the State Government in issuing directives to all the officials concerned to be extra vigilant at the border areas of the State in the face of the NRC verification drive underway at Assam should underline the point that no one can be lax when it comes to checking the entry of non-locals into the State. Politics, economy and demography demand this.
Manipur cannot afford to let her be swamped by illegal immigrants and it is unacceptable that some local elements have been actively involved in bringing in these illegal immigrants to the State.
This is a scary situation.
Why should locals be involved in giving entry to these outsiders and try to cover up their tracks ?
The Sangai Express does not have any concrete answer to this poser, but it tells the tale of how certain elements hold illegal immigrants dearer than the fate of the local people and the land.
These elements need to be identified and penalised fittingly for what they are doing amounts to holding the land and the people to ransom.
Stories of illegal immigrants, particularly Rohingya Muslims, being detected and rounded up have been hitting the pages of the newspapers in Manipur for quite some time now and in almost all the cases there is the involvement of local people.
Apart from the Government agencies cracking down on them, civil society organisations and the people too need to address the issue.
It is an irony that while the JCILPS and the people as a whole are demanding that the Government legislate a law to check the inflow of non-local people into the State, certain elements from amongst the local people should be so actively engaged in bringing in these illegal immigrants.
The exact figure is not with The Sangai Express but quite a large number of Rohingya Muslims have been detected and picked up from different parts of the State in the no so distant past and it is continuing.
Other than the Rohingya Muslims, a number of non-locals without proper identification papers have been turned back at Mao and Jiribam too.
This is not a rosy situation and if the vigil is relaxed one wee bit, then situation may take an even uglier turn. So far three entry points can be identified.
One is from the northern side, Mao, which is the gateway of Manipur to other parts of the country via Nagaland while the others are Jiribam and Moreh on the border with Myanmar.
It is through these three entry points that illegal immigrants have been detected and pulled up.
What is significant to note is that the illegal immigrants from Moreh side are mostly detected at the Assam Rifles check posts that dot the Imphal-Moreh route.
A clear indication that the Rohingya Muslims can easily merge with the locals of Moreh and then take the highway to proceed deeper into the State.
And this is something which is not feasible without the active connivance of some local people.
This is what is deeply disturbing to note.
* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.