Nagaland: Joint Committee on Prevention of Illegal Immigration says ‘only traitors’ will oppose RIIN

Dimapur, Aug. 12 (EMN): The Joint Committee on Prevention of Illegal Immigration (JCPI) spearheading the demand for implementation of ILP in Dimapur district has stated that, in the backdrop of recent developments in J&K, “only traitors will be ranting against RIIN” in Nagaland.

In a press release issued on Monday, the committee asserted that the government of Nagaland has the full legal and moral authority to implement ILP and RIIN in the state.

“However, the state government cannot fool the people by simply adopting a Cabinet resolution to implement the ILP in Dimapur. While the RIIN exercise is underway headed by Banuo Z Jamir, the JCPI strongly demands that the state government ‘announce’ the declaration of Dimapur as ILP zone and begin its pre-implementation exercise from now so that by the time the RIIN exercise is done and over by September, the full and official implementation of ILP in Dimapur and elsewhere will begin without delay,” it stated.

According to the committee, the opposition to RIIN by “some defunct organisations” should not give the government the excuse to delay announcement of implementation of ILP in Dimapur district.

“If this happens, the people will take to the streets to protect the integrity of the state at any cost. At the moment, it seems the state government is running scared of un-mandated and faceless organisations rather than protecting the demographic position of the state. The JCPI knows that RIIN is indispensable for effective implementation of ILP in Nagaland and the government of Nagaland cannot afford to be bogged down by the voices of busybodies and their negative posturing. Whoever stands for BEFR of 1873 must welcome RIIN,” read the statement.

The JCPI asserted that establishing the identity of indigenous inhabitants is a ‘basic necessity’, which should have been done since the inception of statehood. “Nevertheless, though the present exercise of RIIN has been taken up after many collateral damages; yet, it is never too late and all the stakeholders irrespective of political party, ethnicity or organisational affiliation must unequivocally support the identification process which is to provide basic statistics for the purpose of protecting the indigenous inhabitants of the land and for effective implementation of government programmes and policies, and also to enforce the law of the land.”

Also, the committee was of the view that the cut-off date of December I, 1963 is only for the purpose of identifying non-Nagas and Nagas from other states who may be qualified to be called indigenous inhabitants of Nagaland.

“Otherwise Nagas (and Kacharis, Kukis, Garos, Mikirs) of Nagaland are indigenous to the state and the cut-off criterion does not apply. Similarly, on the pressure from certain quarters to set the cut-off date as 1977, the JCPI will be on warpath if this is even mooted by the government,” it warned.