Officials in southern Assam’s Barak Valley have asked their counterparts in Meghalaya to stop vigilantes from harassing passengers for ferreting out “illegal migrants” dropped from the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The Brahmaputra and Barak valleys are connected by rail and road through central Assam’s Dima Hasao district. But the condition of the road through this district is so bad that passengers between Guwahati and Barak Valley towns such as Silchar prefer to use the highway through adjoining Meghalaya.
Soon after Assam published the NRC draft on July 30, vigilantes in Meghalaya led by 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, demanded proof of inclusion in Assam’s NRC. Some passengers were allegedly manhandled too.
The KSU claimed to have caught more than 1,000 illegal migrants on Tuesday, many of them in Ratacherra area adjoining Cachar district of Barak Valley and in Ri-Bhoi (Meghalaya) district closer to Guwahati.
On Wednesday, Assam MP Maulana Badruddin Ajmal called up Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal to ensure people are 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.
“We have intimated Chief Secretary T.Y. Das and have also spoken with officials in Meghalaya to ensure passengers of Assam travelling through Meghalaya are not subjected to harassment,” Cachar Deputy Commissioner L. Lakshmanan said.
Apart from passengers, goods trucks were also stopped by vigilantes in Meghalaya.
There are also reports of Naga Students' Federation and other organisations in Nagaland carrying out a drive to check documents of non-locals in Dimapur and other areas bordering Assam to check possible influx of "NRC-excluded people".
