Thursday, 2 August 2018

Vigilantes brand people as ‘fake’

Vigilantes brand people as ‘fake’
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT GUWAHATI,  AUGUST 02, 2018 00:00 IST
UPDATED: AUGUST 02, 2018 05:23 IST
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Badruddin Ajmal
Badruddin Ajmal  

Check posts set up in Meghalaya
Officials in the Barak Valley in southern Assam have asked their counterparts in Meghalaya to stop vigilantes from harassing passengers by branding them as “illegal migrants” whose names had been dropped from the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The Brahmaputra and Barak Valleys are connected by rail and road through Dima Hasao district in central Assam. Since the road is badly damaged, passengers from Silchar and other places between Guwahati and Barak Valley take the highway through Meghalaya.

Soon after Assam published the complete NRC draft on July 30, vigilantes in Meghalaya, led by the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) and other groups, set up check posts on the highway and other border routes to keep “illegal migrants” out of “our homeland”. They forced people out of private and commercial vehicles and demanded proof of inclusion in the NRC. Some passengers were allegedly manhandled.

The KSU claimed to have caught more than 1,000 “illegal migrants” on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Assam MP Maulana Badruddin Ajmal called up Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal to ensure that people were not unnecessarily harassed in the name of NRC. Mr. Ajmal, who represents the Dhubri Lok Sabha seat, urged Mr. Sonowal to take up the matter with his Meghalaya counterpart Conrad K. Sangma.

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